NeuroSys:Neuroinformatics for Neural Systems

描述（由申请人提供）：神经科学的一个重大挑战是 了解细胞信息处理的生物学基础， 网络层次。继续进步的一个主要技术障碍是 缺乏足够的信息学和分析工具， 复杂神经回路的结构组织， 理解神经系综的涌现特性， 关于神经计算的定量假设，以及对这些假设的测试 实验假设我们开发了一个原型数据库系统， 提供了许多所需的功能，并已使用该软件系统， 研究神经编码的潜在机制。工作的总体目标 这里提出的是扩展这种方法的能力和通用性， 原型系统，将数据库与几个附加工具连接起来， 结构和时间序列数据的分析，并使更有效的 远程协作者之间的数据共享。核心信息和 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。还与以下研究人员建立了合作关系： 其他几个研究机构，以确保我们的系统的互操作性， 与其他数据收集和分析工具，并促进测试和 完善我们的制度。研究者和合作研究者都得到了资助 通过国家卫生研究院研究动态方面的感觉处理在细胞和 网络中各种层次的编写，包括猫和猴 视觉系统研究人员都分享以下一般神经科学 研究目的：a）了解时空之间的关系 神经系综中的活动模式及其传达的信息，B） 理解在一个处理阶段的时空模式如何被解码 在下一个处理阶段，c）理解如何进行计算 在解码的信息上，以及d）理解通过哪些机制 所观察到的动态模式从形态学、突触 连接，和内在的生物物理特性的神经元在 合奏。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，严谨性和速度大幅增加， 这些研究项目的进展。神经科学研究将在 反过来，为提炼、概括和推广提供了严格的依据 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.