RECONSTRUCTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS OF CEREBRAL CORTEX

描述(由申请人提供)：神经科学家面临着大量关于健康和疾病中大脑结构和功能的实验数据。这些信息大部分与大脑皮层和小脑皮质有关，这是人类大脑的主要结构。这些都是极具挑战性的研究，因为它们是高度复杂的片状结构，而且每个人之间都有很大的变数。我们建议对我们现有的一套神经信息学软件工具进行重大增强，用于可视化、分析和数据挖掘，以促进大脑和小脑皮质的研究。这一资源的主要组成部分包括：(1)人和非人灵长类动物的表面图谱，捕捉皮质卷曲的形状并表示种群平均和个体变异性；(2)神经成像数据数据库(SumsDB)，与在线可视化工具(WebCaret)相连；及(3)提供大量分析和可视化能力的大脑绘图软件应用程序(CARET)。我们的地图集工作将集中在人类大脑皮层，它包含一个复杂但鲜为人知的不同区域的马赛克(总共100-200个)。我们将在SumsDB中生成一个大脑皮层区域的‘库’，代表许多不同的已发布的大脑皮层区域地图，这些地图使用各种方法进行识别，并全部注册到一个通用的图集框架中。对于研究功能定位的神经科学家来说，这个图书馆将成为一个有价值的、容易获得的参考资料。我们还将生成与正常个体和各种疾病条件下的皮质功能和结构相关的已发表实验数据的库。这些文库将促进交叉研究比较，揭示每个皮质区域一致的功能特征和邻近区域之间的功能差异。我们将把人类大脑皮层的功能组织与黑猩猩和猕猴进行比较。这将为深入了解每个物种中哪些皮质区域具有共同的进化起源，哪些区域在人类谱系中的大小有所扩大，以及人类是否存在其他灵长类物种完全不存在的皮质区域。最后，我们将在CARET软件中实现几个主要的增强功能。这将包括更有效和更灵敏地表征正常结构和功能以及疾病条件下皮质异常的方法。这些目标的成功实现将为神经科学家提供一套强大而灵活的工具，用于分析、可视化、共享和访问广泛的实验数据，从而加快更好地了解、诊断和治疗许多大脑疾病的努力。 公共卫生相关性：该项目将提供改进的脑成像方法，以表征各种神经和精神障碍中大脑的结构和功能异常。它还将提供一个神经成像数据库和强大的数据挖掘方法，以便于访问有关健康和疾病中大脑结构和功能的海量信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Neuroscientists are faced with a torrent of experimental data about the structure and function of the brain in health and disease. Much of this information pertains to the cerebral cortex and cerebellar cortex, the dominant structures of the human brain. These are challenging to study because they are highly convoluted sheet-like structures and are highly variable from one individual to the next. We propose a set of major enhancements to our existing set of neuroinformatics software tools for visualization, analysis, and data mining that facilitate studies of cerebral and cerebellar cortex. Key components of this resource include (i) surface- based atlases in humans and nonhuman primates that capture the shape of cortical convolutions and represent population averages as well as individual variability; (ii) a database of neuroimaging data (SumsDB) coupled to an online visualization tool (WebCaret); and (iii) a brain-mapping software application (Caret) that provides numerous analysis and visualization capabilities. Our atlasing efforts will concentrate on human cerebral cortex, which contains a complex but poorly understood mosaic of distinct areas (100-200 in total). We will generate a 'library' of cortical areas in SumsDB representing many different published maps of cortical areas, identified using a variety of methods and all registered to a common atlas framework. This library will serve as a valuable and easily accessible reference collection for neuroscientists studying functional localization. We will also generate libraries of published experimental data related to cortical function and structure in normal individuals and in a variety of disease conditions. These libraries will facilitate cross-study comparisons that reveal consistent functional characteristics of each cortical area and functional differences between nearby areas. We will compare the functional organization of human cerebral cortex to that in the chimpanzee and macaque monkey. This will provide insights as to which cortical areas have a common evolutionary origin in each species, which areas have expanded in size in the human lineage, and whether there are cortical areas present in humans that are altogether absent in other primate species. Finally, we will implement several major enhancements in Caret software. This will include methods for more efficient and sensitive characterization of normal structure and function and of cortical abnormalities in disease conditions. Successful execution of these aims will provide neuroscientists with a powerful and flexible set of tools for analyzing, visualizing, sharing, and accessing a broad range of experimental data, thereby accelerating efforts to better understand, diagnose, and treat many brain disorders. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project will provide improved brain mapping methods for characterizing structural and functional abnormalities of the brain in a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders. It will also provide a neuroimaging database and powerful data mining methods that facilitate access to enormous amounts of information about brain structure and function in health and disease.