Neuroinformatics in the United Kingdom

David WillshawInstitute for Adaptive & Neural Computation

School of InformaticsUniversity of Edinburgh, UK

Summary of talk

1. Definition of Neuroinformatics

2. How to Organise Neuroinformatics on a National and an International Scale

3. Neuroinformatics Activities in the UK- the science

4. Neuroinformatics Activities in the UK- organisation

5. Neuroinformatics Related Activities/Events/Schemes

6. Self-reflection: Lessons for the UK

1. Definition of Neuroinformatics

Neuroinformatics

“… Combines neuroscience and informatics research to develop and apply the advanced tools

and approaches that are essential for major advances in understanding the structure and

function of the brain.”

Report of the OECD Megascience Forum Biological Informatics Working Group Neuroinformatics Subgroup,

1998

The three pillars of neuroinformatics

NEUROSCIENCE

DATA & DATABASES

SOFTWARE

TOOLS

COMPUTATIONAL

NEUROSCIENCE

Analysis

Simulation

GENERAL COMPUTATIONAL

PRINCIPLES

2. How to Organise Neuroinformatics on a National and International Scale

Possible ways of integrating neuroinformatics worldwide

1. Centralised

• Has a physical Centre, to which all other geographical units are related as satellites

• Simple structure (and management?)

• ‘Easy’ to justify to national funding bodies, especially if there is a local central mass of expertise

• Dominated by Centre, requiring satellites to buy in on the Centre’s terms

Possible ways of integrating neuroinformatics worldwide

2. Federated

• Many equal partners • Distributed management, with minimal central

coordination• Covers many geographical regions and all of

neuroinformatics• No insistence on common standards• To be plausible to national funding bodies this requires

lots of real international collaborations • Loose management structure may be a drawback

Possible ways of integrating neuroinformatics worldwide

3. Local first, global afterwards

• Easier to form a committed local community then a committed global one

• Easier to deal with local concerns locally • Easier to argue for generic methodologies locally than

globally• But how to do the joining up?

These models have been proposed – what has happened?

1. Centralised: lacks wide international commitment to particular aims of project

2. Federated: its focus had to be made much narrower than initially envisaged, to satisfy the funding agency but making it less satisfactory to the neuroinformatics community at large

3. Local first, global afterwards: we must all try to get the local bit right first

3. Neuroinformatics Activities in the UK- the science

The mechanism for the propagation of the impulse (1952)

A L Hodgkin and A F Huxley, J. Physiol., 117, 500-544 (1952)

Conductance is voltage-dependent….

Marr’s (1969) model for the role of the cerebellum in associative learning

Features of UK neuroinformatics

From Sept 2001 workshop

Features: • lots of modelling work (hippocampus, basal ganglia, visual system,

developmental), brain imaging, a few databases (eg, for Drosophila), small but significant activity in tools

Concerns: • long term support of neuroinformatics tools• lack of credit assigned to neuroinformatics practitioners• standards: cottage industry preferred over Microsoft model• need to compete for funding with strong UK bioinformatics community• little track record in industrial/commercial collaboration• coordination of the various UK funding schemes desirable

4. Neuroinformatics Activities in the UK- organisation

• The three most relevant of the seven UK Research Councils:

• MRC – Medical Research Council (£490M p.a)

• BBSRC – Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (£270M p.a.)

• EPSRC – Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (£560M or 800MEuro p.a.)

Steps towards developingUK neuroinformatics

1996

1999

2001

• Workshop in Edinburgh to inform MRC Neurosciences and Mental Health Board

• EPSRC/MRC/BBSRC workshop in Abingdon bringing together neuroscientists, biologists and computer scientists with funding agencies

• MRC/EPSRC workshop in Edinburgh attended by ~50 neuroinformaticians and potential neuroinformaticians

Steps towards developingUK neuroinformatics

2004

- 2007

• ESRC/MRC/BBSRC funded

Network in Neuroinformatics

Goals of the Network:– To establish the community– To examine state of UK neuroinformatics– To scope out areas of likely development

– This will act as the UK node in the OECD recommended scheme

UK Neuroinformatics Network work plan

5. Neuroinformatics Related Activities/Events/Schemes

Activities/events/schemes specific to neuroinformatics

1999-

2002- 2004

2000 - 2002

2002- 2007

2002- 2005

• Neuroinformatics PhD studentships/fellowships (MRC)

• Summer school in neuroinformatics (EPSRC)

• Workshops on high performance neuroinformatics (EPSRC/MRC)

• Programme Grant in computational neuroscience (MRC)

• eScience grant on computational tools for neuroinformatics (MRC/BBSRC)

Activities/events/schemes with a wider remit

2001

- 2004

2002

- 2003

• £120M UK Government Initiative in eScience

(eScience: “science undertaken through distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet, involving large of complex data collections, terascale computing resource and high performance visualisation”)

• UK Government Foresight Initiative in Cognitive Systems– Initiative by scientists that brings together life scientists, computer

scientists/engineers to help each other • to understand (natural) cognitive systems• to build better (artificial) cognitive systems

Activities/events/schemes with a wider remit

2001

2002- 2003

2002- 2003

2003

2003

• EPSRC Life Sciences Interface Programme established

– £20M call for research into Novel Computation• 16 clusters of scientists given funding to develop proposals

– £35M Doctoral Training Programme in the Life Sciences• 7 centres established, each offering 50 4-year PhD studentships

in subjects at the intersection of the life sciences and the physical/computer sciences, maths & engineering

– The centre at Edinburgh is dedicated to neuroinformatics– Two other neuroinformatics related centres (biological modelling,

UCL; mathematical biology, Warwick)

• £10M MRC programme in multidisciplinary approaches to mental health and neurodegenerative diseases

• BBSRC initiative in predictive/systems biology

6. Self-reflection: Lessons for the UK• Need to involve many different agencies, funding

bodies (Wellcome Trust?)• Need to link into existing schemes which have

strong neuroinformatics components• Need to profit from current UK interest in bringing

together life scientists and “physical” scientists• Need to examine teaching provision

But the infrastructure to develop

UK neuroinformatics is in place!

Nature, 427, 275 (22 January 2004)

Ministers prepare to back neuroscience network

[PARIS] Brain scientists around the world wrestling with the thorny problem of how to share their data should soon find their lives getting a little easier.

Plans for an international facility to integrate such information are expected to be endorsed next week at a meeting in Paris of 30 science ministers from countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The planned International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility would bring together disparate neuroscience databases to allow researchers to share and compare their results more readily (see Nature, 406, 822-825; 2000).

The facility would build its own databases, nurture agreements between nations on data sharing, and even fund some research on neuroinformatics, says Stefan Michalowski, executive secretary of the OECD’s Global Science Forum. The annual cost of the administrative body that would run the facility would be about US$1.2 million.