Mbirn: Sharing and expanding a taxonomy database of fMRI experimental designs
Background:
The BIRN goal of a research resource in which investigators can transparently retrieve data from around the country requires the intelligent use of ontologies in the querying process. An investigator may wish to retrieve working memory experiments, for example, or may be more interested in particular forms of working memory (spatial, auditory, Sternberg or N-back designs). The database and search infrastructure need representations of these ontological details in order to perform the required queries. The University of Texas Health Science Center, in San Antonio, has already developed an initial database of published literature, focusing on Tailarach-standardized results rather than the storage of raw data, but includes ontology of cognitive experiments. Additionally, UTHSC has developed a tool to quickly formalize experimental designs allowing users to specify the type of cognitive experiment, the response devices, and timing of stimuli for block designs. The inclusion of this tool (i.e. an open source JAVA tool presented at NifTI) into the BIRN web-based database GUI as a front end for design and specification of experimental protocols will be extremely valuable. The goal is to work with the GCRC to understand their ontology and apply it within the BIRN HID, so that UTHS databases, BIRN databases and related query tools are more interoperable.
Participating GCRC site:
University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio
Interaction Benefits:
FBIRN/MBIRN would take a significant leap forward in having a base ontology for classifying behavioral experiments. San Antonio would benefit from greater publicity and wider use of their taxonomy and tools. Both would improve through broader inclusion of new experimental methods as brought in by the FBIRN sites, and with revisions as needed to reflect the more detailed information required for BIRN usage and queries.
Deliverables:
The application of the UTHSC experimental ontology to the BIRN HID, so that experiments as they are designed are linked to pre-existing hierarchies of experiments and made retrievable through intelligent queries (e.g., finding working memory experiments or finger-movement experiments as a subset of sensorimotor experiments).
Resources:
Personnel time from FBIRN, primarily, the recently formed Ontology Task Force as relevant, and from UTHSC.
