NeuroSys:Neuroinformatics for Neural Systems

描述(申请人提供)：神经科学的一个重大挑战是 了解信息处理的生物学基础，在细胞和 网络级别。继续进步的一个主要技术障碍是 缺乏适当的信息学和分析工具，无法探索 复杂神经回路的结构组织，这一发现和 对神经系综涌现特性的理解， 关于神经计算的量化假说及其检验 实验上的假设。我们已经开发了一个原型数据库系统， 提供了许多所需的功能，并已使用此软件系统 研究神经编码的潜在机制。工作的总体目标 此处建议的是扩展此组件的功能和一般用途 原型系统，用于将数据库与几个附加工具对接 对结构性和时间序列数据的分析，并使更有效 远程协作者之间的数据共享。核心信息学和 神经科学研究将由蒙大拿州的一组研究人员进行 州立大学。还与研究人员建立了合作关系， 其他几个研究机构，以确保我们系统的互操作性 与其他数据收集和分析工具配合使用，并促进测试和 完善我们的系统。调查员和联合调查员都得到了资助 通过美国国立卫生研究院研究细胞和 在各种网络级别的准备，包括猫和猴子 视觉系统。研究人员都分享了以下一般神经科学 研究目的：a)了解时空关系 神经集合中的活动模式及其传递的信息，b) 理解在一个处理阶段的时空模式是如何被解码的 在下一个处理阶段，c)了解计算是如何进行的 以及d)了解通过哪些机制 观察到的动态模式出现在形态、突触 连通性，以及神经元的内在生物物理特征 合唱团。这里开发的软件工具将应用于这些正在进行的 研究，使广度、深度、严谨性和速度都有了实质性的提高 这些研究项目的进展情况。神经科学研究将在 反过来，为精化、泛化和扩展提供了严密的基础 信息学工具。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A grand challenge in neuroscience is to understand the biological basis of information processing at the cellular and network levels. One major technological barrier to continuing progress is the lack of adequate informatics and analysis tools to enable exploration of the structural organization of complex neural circuits, the discovery and understanding of emergent properties of neural ensembles, the formulation of quantitative hypotheses about neural computation, and the testing of those hypotheses experimentally. We have developed a prototype database system that provides many of the needed capabilities, and have used this software system to study mechanisms underlying neural encoding. The general goals of the work proposed here are to extend the capabilities and general utility of this prototype system, to interface the database with several additional tools for the analysis of structural and time-series data, and to enable more effective data sharing between remote collaborators. The core informatics and neuroscience research will be carried out by a group of researchers at Montana State University. Collaborations have also been established with researchers at several other research institutions, to insure interoperability of our system with other data collection and analysis tools and to facilitate the testing and refinement of our system. The investigator and co-investigators are all funded through NIH to study dynamic aspects of sensory processing at the cellular and network levels in a variety of preparations, including the cat and monkey visual systems. The researchers all share the following general neuroscience research aims: a) to understand the relationships between spatio-temporal activity patterns in neural ensembles and the information they convey, b) to understand how the spatio-temporal patterns at one processing stage are decoded at the next processing stage, c) to understand how computations are carried out on that decoded information, and d) to understand the mechanisms through which the observed dynamical patterns emerge from the morphology, synaptic connectivity, and intrinsic biophysical characteristics of the neurons in the ensembles. The software tools developed here will be applied to these ongoing studies, enabling a substantial increase in the breadth, depth, rigor, and rate of progress of those research projects. That neuroscience research will, in turn, provide a rigorous basis for the refinement, generalization and extension of the informatics tools.