Interactive Insect Neuroanatomy Databases for the World Wide Web

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This project will continue the development of "Flybrain," an interactive database of the central nervous system of Drosophila and describes specific aims for both levels of database construction. At the deep, infrastructural level (level one), the specific aims of the project include increased automation of data integration and transfer; optimization of interactive viewing and virtual dissection programs; creation of programs to display physiological records; and design and implementation of a concept-based search engine. Level two specific aims focus on the addition of a second core Arias of the thoracic and abdominal central nervous system of Drosophila and the implementation of parallel databases, two devoted to the brains of neurobiologically important insect groups, the other focusing on the evolution of arthropod brains. These developments will provide topical and much needed access to detailed graphical data on the organization of brains and nervous systems of the dominant metazoan Phylum, to the benefit of a wide international community of neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists, as well as new tools for database management and manipulation of three-dimensional data. The implementation of professionally managed neuroscience databases on the World Wide Web provides immediate and extremely efficient access to graphic data on the structure and function of central nervous systems that are particularly relevant to modern research. These databases range from interactive atlases of human brains, through databases on the nervous systems of zebra fish, Aplysia, nematodes, and fruit flies (this project). Three mirror sites in the United States, Germany, and Japan have collaborated in the design and implementation of the project which has made unexpectedly rapid progress in the first 16 months of its National Science Foundation funding. Major advances were achieved in the first funding phase at two levels of database development: 1) the design and implementation of a stable framework and robust mechanisms to acquire, organize, manage, search, and mirror large amounts of image data with minimum maintenance and 2) the installation of comprehensive, annotated searchable atlases of wild- type Drosophila brain with links to allied data such as reconstructed single neurons, pathways, and schematics, as well as homologous structures of other insects. New methods have been implemented for retrieving information from a highly linked network of data modules. Novel graphical representations reveal new ways to view and manipulate two- and three-dimensional structure.