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Project Title :
NeuroBase
An Information System for Managing Distributed
Knowledge and Data Bases in Neuroimaging
Neurobase is a cooperative project, supported by a grant from the French ministry of Research (Concerted Action - ACI - "Technology for Health')
The Neurobase project aims to establish
the conditions allowing through Internet the federation of distributed information
data bases in neuroimaging, information being located in various centers
of experimentation, clinical department in neurology or research center
in cognitive neurosciences. This project consist in specifying how to connect
and access distributed information data bases in neuroimaging by the definition
of a data-processing architecture allowing the access and the sharing of
experimentation results or even data processing methods within a same site
or between different sites. This would allow for example within these information
data bases the search for similar results, the search for images containing
singularities or transverse searches to highlight possible regularities
(similarly to a "data mining" type approach).
Keywords: Management of data and knowledge warehouse;
knowledge discovery, computer aided medical decision making; medical imaging;
image processing; brain functional imaging; distributed data bases
Context :
One objective of neuroscientists is the construction of functional cerebral maps under normal and pathological conditions. Researches are currently performed to find correlations between anatomical structures, essentially sulci and gyri, where neuronal activations take place, and cerebral functions, as assessed by recordings obtained by the means of various neuroimaging modalities, such as PET (Positron Emission Tomography), fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), EEG (electro-encephalography) and MEG (magneto-encephalography). Then, a central problem inherent to the formation of such maps is to put together recordings obtained from different modalities and from different subjects. This mapping can be greatly facilitated by the use of MR anatomical brain scans with high spatial resolution that allows a proper visualization of fine anatomical structures (sulci and gyri). Recent improvements in image processing techniques, such as segmentation, registration, delineation of the cortical ribbon, modeling of anatomical structures and multi-modality fusion, make possible this ambitious goal of neuroscientists. Nevertheless sophisticated techniques are often located in specific laboratories and are not yet available to the entire community.
In this context, the Neurobase project consists in specifying how to connect and access distributed, heterogeneous and autonomous information sources in neuroimaging by defining a data-processing architecture allowing the access and the sharing of experimentation results and data processing methods within a same site or between different sites.