Neuroscience, People Mapping, and My Damn Microwave

Because San Diego State does NOT have a Neuroscience program *waves fists,* I have had to conjure one up on my own. (I originally came here to study business management and art but switched to medicine on orientation day.) Today you find me as the Psychology and Biology double major trying to keep my head above the water.

Over winter break, I have attempted to pursue a small education in the Computational NeuroScience subject matter. I started by reading Apprentices of Wonder: Inside the Neural Network Revolution, a book borrowed from good my phriend and physics professor, Tony DiMauro. Written by William F. Allman, it’s an introduction to the connectivist Dao that covers everything from brain teaser examples to descriptions of current uses of the neural network. [More on that some other day...] I found it very interesting and have made a new hobby of wondering how most everyday objects would function differently if powered by a neural network. I’m almost certain my microwave/nuclear reactor would have learned how to heat without melting my dinners by now. (Try reheating panda express and you’ll get a plate sized recreation of Chernobyl.)

And following that connection to the latest advent of 3D anatomical atlases that seem to be appearing from all sides, we seem to have many new opportunities to constructively integrate this technology. Many of my current areas of interest, including the geographic information system (GIS) model of the human body, are, as it turns out, under development. The IBM Zurich Laboratory as well as a collaboration by Stanford, Google, and NASA have all quietly begun research in developing a “bio-referencing” system that will allow doctors to navigate the human body. If you want to play with this concept, cruise over to http://www.visiblebody.com/ and take the human anatomy for a test drive. Although this polygon based 3D model is quite compelling, it is developed as a reference to the concept of human anatomy and is not an accurate image of a real human as is the 2D Visual Human Project.

My dream and active research pursuit for the last year has been a convergence of the two concepts of raster and vector data as it pertains to biomapping. And while I kept it top-secret, only confiding in close friends and collaborators, and of course intellectual property patent attorneys, it turns out I may have been beaten to the chase by those better equipped with supercomputers and experience *air of bitterness.* (I asked my parents for an SG Prism Visualization System and a Siemens AXIOM CT scanner for Christmas, but I got a purple blanket instead. Damn. Next year…)

Speaking of which...
Stanford has used a new, more powerful, system of CT scanning to take a peek inside the body of a 2,000 year old mummy (Article 1, and Article 2). I feel as our capacity to take higher quality images increases, our need for cataloging and presenting them in referenced and annotated 3D will become greater. And as computing power increases, as those in GIS as desperate to see, our ability to disperse this data among scientists outside the supercomputing centers will also increase. And so, I’m seeing new groups of researchers emerge along with new growth in the private sector. *Investment opportunities galore.* However, as we will soon start to see an explosion in this field, we will also see the same snowball effect of incompatibilities in database structure, markup languages, and graphics rendering. Smells a lot like GIS...*sigh.*

So, then what now?? Well, we ought to learn from the mistakes of those damn hippy geographers and create a standard now before all of our funding is spent on conversion algorithms and more processing power to account for our foolish inefficiencies. I don’t want to see the fast paced explosion of the bioinformatics field get stifled by a lack of congruence. And there, we follow the neural pathway to the novel concept of a standard modeling system of the human body. Its not too far off, and it just might be under secret development as I write this.

However, I feel it is the neuroscientists who may need to spearhead such a project. Why us you may ask? Well when designing a database system it is good practice to think well ahead into what may be the most complex use and what roadblocks the future may see because of a lack of expandability. It is my personal belief that neuroscience may just as well be the most confusing SOB field out there with the greatest amount of unknowns and possibilities for researchers to try and consider. So, in that regard, I think it is fitting that they should find out the limitations of such a system currently being presented and make sure that there is plenty of room to expand in the directions we want to go for we fear the risk of having to segregate from the vast wealth of data the rest of the body may provide in a comprehensive map.

So, I’ve taken this opportunity to begin research into the most comprehensive neuro-analysis software systems and have been constructively criticizing the UI and analyzing each to see what potential it has to offer the overall schema of the “standard bio-referencing system.”
But first, I'll have to fold my laundry...

So...

I hope 2008 has found you well and rested. I know my break has certainly been anything but relaxing, as I completed a 3 week intensive accelerated course in emergency medicine at UCLA, followed immediately by a 1 week intensive snowboard excursion in Canada. I have now until Friday to prepare for the next semester when I will then be travelling/snowboarding once again until Sunday. So, with that sleep deprived regard, I'll start this ol' bligity blog off. For those of you who subscribed to my last blog, ill have you know that its quite over due to my lack of resource in maintaining a polyblogish lifestyle aside my flamboyant lack resource in general.