Core Grant for Vision Research

描述（由申请人提供）：Smith-Kettlewell眼科研究所（SKERI）的研究重点是视觉和视觉系统疾病的临床基础和康复研究。Smith-Kettlewell的科学家们接受了来自不同医学和科学背景的培训：眼科学，实验心理学，神经生理学，工程学，验光学和生物物理学。他们的主要研究课题是视觉处理，双眼视觉及其动力学，视觉通路的皮层组织和发展，老年人的视觉，残疾人的物体识别和计算视觉，以及康复工具和技术。特别强调应用现代成像技术来解决这些问题，包括全头VEP，MRI，fMRI，DTI和SLO成像的各种技术，最近的重点是将这些方法中的许多或大多数集成到大规模的多模态成像能力中。在过去的四十年里，NEI核心资助已经形成了其最重要的共享研究服务的核心组成部分，包括计算机通信和资源以及电子设备的设计和维护，但最近扩展到多研究者支持丰富的脑成像模式。考虑到史密斯-凯特韦尔小组的规模适中，科学家的接近程度以及他们共同的研究兴趣，科学家之间的合作是标准做法。主要 调查人员分享资源没有什么困难。我们的计算机服务，布赖恩成像和电子硬件模块的技术专长极大地有利于新的研究议程的快速发展-新的主要研究人员和博士后研究员的关键优势，以及我们的高生产力的主要因素。当代科学研究的一个新兴主题是越来越依赖于高度计算密集型的分析，如计算建模，数据挖掘和大型数据库的统计分析。这些技术允许由现代实验工具（如多模态脑成像）产生的大量数据提供对数据的高水平解释。为了促进和支持在史密斯-凯特尔韦尔采用高性能计算方法，我们正在开发一个核心支持的高性能计算计划，以帮助研究人员确定使用高性能软件和硬件实现其研究目标的有效方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (SKERI) is focused on clinical basic and rehabilitation studies in vision and disorders of the visual system. Smith-Kettlewell scientists have training from diverse medical and scientific backgrounds: ophthalmology, experimental psychology, neurophysiology, engineering, optometry and biophysics. Their main topics of study are oculomotor processing, binocular vision and its dynamics, cortical organization and development of the visual pathways, vision in the aging eye, object recognition and computational vision for the disabled, and rehabilitation tools and techniques. Particular emphasis has been laid on applying modern imaging techniques to these problems, including the diverse techniques of whole-head VEP, MRI, fMRI, DTI, and SLO imaging, with a recent focus on integrating many or most of these methodologies into a large-scale multimodal imaging capabilities. For the past four decades, the NEI Core Grant has formed the central component of its most important shared research services, including computer communication and resources and electronic equipment design and maintenance, but extending more recently to multi-investigator support for the wealth of brain imaging modalities. Given the moderate scale of the Smith-Kettlewell group, the proximity of the scientists, and their common research interests, collaboration among scientists is standard practice. Principal Investigators share resources with little difficulty. The technical expertise of our Computer Services, Brian Imaging and Electronics Hardware modules greatly benefits the rapid development of new research agendas ~ a key advantage for new principal investigators and postdoctoral fellows, and a major factor in our high productivity. An emerging theme of contemporary scientific research is the increasing reliance on highly computation-intensive analyses such as computational modeling, data mining and statistical analysis of large databases. Such techniques allow the enormous amounts of data g¿enerated by modern experimental tools such as multimodal brain imaging to furnish high-level interpretations of the data. To facilitate and support the adoption of high-performance computing methods at Smith-Kettlewell, we are developing a Core-supported High-Performance Computing Initiative to help researchers identify efficient approaches to their research goals using high-performance software and hardware.