Blog Directory : Listing Details
Brain Stimulant details
Listing ID: 45
Title: Brain Stimulant
Description: Covering several topics about the brain, neuroscience, neurotechnology and artificial intelligence.
Category: Science
Owner:
listed on: March 30, 2008 11:28:23 PM
Number Hits: 5 times
Recent Posts:
| NeuGrid: Brain Imaging Infrastructure for Defeating Neurodegenerative Diseases - Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:47:34 PST |
 There is a European project calledNeuGrid. The main intent of this undertaking is to improve the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzhiemer's. Neuroscientists are begining to collect alarge amountof data from brain scans about specific diseases. BothHenry MarkramandRay Kurzweilhave mentioned about certain trends in number crunching and how they can be applied to accelerating progress on these fronts. The information that we are gathering is far too great for any one person to learn even a very tiny fraction of. However new software and technology may be able to increase our understanding of these processes beyond what any single human intelligence could possibly comprehend.Grid computingarchitectures should enable scientists to collaborate and share data faster than ever before. Computing resources can be spread across multiple research areas. Avenues that are being scaled up include;
In silico drug discoverySee thisPDF filefor more information.This pagehas the ultimate goals of NeuGrid. neuGRID aims to become the "Google for Brain Imaging", providing a centrally-managed, easy-to-use set of tools with which scientists can perform analyses and collaborate.A new video about the NeuGrid project is below; Older videos on NeuGrid arehereandhere. I think the most interesting question pertaining to this is whether we can use this explosive growth in the understanding of our own biochemistry to actually defeat the aging process itself. Doing this is obviously considerably more difficult than merely slowing the progression of currently disabling disease states. However, I think we are moving closer to this seemingly improbable end point.  |
| GPU Conference Presentations - Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:40:39 PST |
 Imentioned previously about a GPU conferencethat discussed the implications of the technology for doing scientific research. There are certain classes of problems that GPU's are especially suited for and they offer a speed up whencompared to CPU's. As an example, researchers have recently developed a relatively inexpensive13 gpu "supercomputer"with about 12 teraflops of computing power for scientific problems. GPU's have been rivaling the complexity of intel's most advanced technology and3 billion transistor gpu chipswill probably hit the market shortly. Nvidia also believes that they can reach10 billion transistors easily. With this speed up of processing power coupled with machine learning, we will be able to learn more about the brain than ever before. While it's probably somewhat facile to make a blanket statement thatcomputing poweris increasing exponentially, there are still some interesting exponential trends in the field that will likely continue for at least the next 5 or ten years.Nvidia has put media from that 2009 conference online and several of them are related to neuroscience. The companyEvolved Machinesis "pioneering the reverse engineering of brain circuitry to build intelligent machines". An audio talk can be foundhere (6.1 MB). "Reconstructing the Brain: Extracting Neural Circuitry with CUDA and MPI" is a 37.6 MB video presentation (download here). The following is an excerpt about that video; In this talk we will present our insights and lessons learned in using CUDA to reconstruct neural connections in high-resolution EM data. We will present technical details and non-trivial issues regarding the implementation of NeuroTrace, our system for semi-automatic segmentation and interactive visualization of terabytes of EM image data. The segmentation method is based on a sequence of 2D level set segmentations of cell membranes integrated with an image correspondence energy for robust transition between consecutive slices and a weighted path extrapolation method to trace a 3D centerline of a neural pathway along non-axis aligned slices.Optimizing Ion Channel Kinetics Using A Massively Parallel Genetic Algorithm on the GPU (26.4 MB video presentation); Voltage-gated ion channels effect the integration of information in many neurons. Some neurons express over 10 voltage-gated channels that turn information processing into a highly non-linear affair. The currently popular analysis techniques suffer from various shortcomings that limit the ability of the researcher to rapidly produce physiologically relevant models of voltage-gated ion channels.Medical Image Registration with CUDA (37.6 MB video presentation); Speedups of up to 750 times were obtained as compared to code in daily use at Addenbrookes Hospital and Bio-Medical Campus. Some very recent results are shown in the figures. This work is of direct application in both research and clinical practice. A particular application is voxel based MRI morphometry in humans and in animal brains.High-Throughput Science (271 MB keynote speech); How did the universe start? How is the brain wired? How does matter interact at the quantum level? These are some of the great scientific challenges of our times, and answering them requires bigger scientific instruments, increasingly precise imaging equipment and ever-more complex computer simulations.The rest of the presentations can befound here. They cover a wide variety of topics.  |
| Virtual Whole Body Simulations for Personalized Healthcare - Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:21:10 PST |
 The virtual physiological human (VPH) initiative is another project that is related toNeuGrid. Researchers are aiming to develop better computer simulations of the human body. This could potentially allow for personalized medicine, with tailored therapies for each individual.There is a lot of promising biotechnology in the pipeline that has really taken a long time to come to fruition. I think there has been a lot of difficulty in translating the research of stem cells, gene therapy andrna interferenceinto approvable therapies. With pharmaceutical drugs, a lot of the low hanging fruit has already been picked. New drug approvals for2009 were flat compared to previous years, even though we probably know more about human biochemistry than ever before. Gene therapy has been around for a long time, but just hasn't yet panned out too well in the way of usable treatments. A main problem is that it can be tough to perform successful clinical trials. A lot of diseases are multi-faceted as well, which adds another layer of complexity. So in the short term I think it may become even more difficult to get an FDA nod for specific treatments. However, in the long term I am optimistic that computer simulations of the human body could speed up the approval process. Below are a few of the goals of this extensive undertaking. a) Development of patient-specific computer based models and simulation of the physiology of human organs and pathologies.Under the umbrella of the VPH initiative there are many specific projects that scientists are working on. The SurgAid project has been conceived to develop and apply new methods for diagnosis and support in mitral valve (MV) surgery repair procedures, based on the combined analysis and integration of the FEM approach with the advanced processing of real-time 3D echocardiographic images.Cancer is another area that could witness improvements in outcomes. HAMAM – Highly Accurate Breast Cancer Diagnosis through Integration of Biological Knowledge, Novel Imaging Modalities, and Modelling - is a three year project that started in September 2008.The above information comes from a recent newsletterjanuary (2010) (PDF). Another newsletter from last year discusses a little more about the project (see PDF file). Basically they mention that we need more computing power. PCs has been advancing steadily since decades, but even the most recent central processing units (CPUs) are far from being able to follow the dynamics of an average protein, with atomic detail, for milli- or even microseconds of simulated time: this is the “scale gap” between the molecular and the biological macroscales. The mission of GPUGRID at IMIM, part of the VPH NoE Toolkit, is to provide members of the VPH with the tools to bridge this gap.A roadmap of the VPH can be foundhere (PDF). Another article on it canbe found here. Grid computing and health (PDF)  |