Two fundamental questions of neuroscience define neuronal identity and coding of neuronal signals. Our laboratory is conducting a multi-year initiative to develop networked databases of brain neurophysiology that will allow exploring these questions. One database--funded by the NIMH's Human Brain Project--will include somatosensory cortical neurons and characteristic neurophysiological data encapsulating these neurons' responses to specific stimuli. A parallel NIH-funded effort is establishing a database of molluscan identified neurons and the largely intracellular electrophysiological data that describe them.

Neuron data will incorporate parameters used by neurophysiologists to describe recording methodology, stimulating paradigms, and electrophysiological responses. To make the database useful to brain neuroscientists, we are designing a suite of multiplatform tools supporting acquisition, query, and visualization of single and multi-electrode spike train datasets. These tools will allow integration of data characterizing responses of cortical neurons to complementary stimuli, synthesizing a unified understanding of brain information processing. With the resulting enhanced utilization of data, cortical experiments can be coordinated among laboratories, conserving valuable nonhuman primates. All data structures and methods defined in this project are designed to be generalizable to other electrophysiological studies in cortical and subcortical structures of the brain.

Our methodology includes development of object-oriented database schemas for neuronal data, as well as the use of Java, permitting databases to be accessible via the world-wide web to any member of the international neuroscience community using any contemporary computer system, including Macintosh, UNIX-XWindows, or MSWindows.

The project coordinates the efforts of brain researchers at NYU, Wash. U., the Krieger Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins, Yale, and Bowman Gray. Our collaborators at these institutions will aid development and testing of access and query methods and viewer tools and provide complementary physiological data from several techniques and preparations.

e-mail: dan@aplysia.med.cornell.edu

Further Information:
http://physiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/gardner/index.html