Image Informatics

Abstract

Mapping the human brain, and the brains of other species, has long been hampered by the fact that there is substantial variance in both the structure and function of this organ among individuals within a species. Utilizing data from structural, functional, diffusion MRI, along with GWAS studies and clinical measures, we have built atlases with defined coordinate systems creating a framework for mapping and relating diverse data across studies. This talk describes the development and application of a theoretical framework, computational tools and visualization techniques for the construction of probabilistic atlases of large numbers of individuals in a population. It begins with some historical examples of approaches to map the structure and function of brain and ends with promises to come. Essential elements in performing this type of population based research are the informatics infrastructure to assemble, describe, disseminate and mine data collections along with computational resources necessary for large scale processing of big data such as whole genome sequence data and imaging data. This talk also describes the methods we have employed to address these challenges.