NSF PR 01-21 - March 22, 2001
Media contact:
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Dave Vannier
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(703) 292-8070
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dvannier@nsf.gov
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Program contact:
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Steve Breckler
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(703) 292-8728
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sbreckler@nsf.gov
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This material is available primarily
for archival purposes. Telephone numbers
or other contact information may be out
of date; please see current contact information
at media
contacts.
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Brain Image Database Benefits Research and Education
Worldwide
Brain scans are an important tool for medical science,
basic research and education, but this expensive technology
is often out of reach for many institutions. Now a
team at Dartmouth College has developed a repository
for images of human brain scans that is available
free to researchers and educators worldwide.
The National Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(fMRI) Data Center was established with a grant of
$4.7 million over five years from the National Science
Foundation (NSF). The scientific research and education
community recently gained access to the first data
sets, which are made available by Dartmouth on CD-ROMs.
The fMRI Data Center will be featured March 26 at the
2001 annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience
Society in New York City.
"Computational tools were essential to the triumph
of the human genome project, and we want to bring
this power into brain research," says Michael Gazzaniga,
director of Dartmouth's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.
"The fMRI Data Center provides a valuable service
for students, scholars and researchers of brain function."
The goal of Gazzaniga and colleagues has been to overcome
the high cost of fMRI technology and the lack of a
common data standard. The brain images come from fMRI
results published in peer-reviewed journals. Once
the data are received, all traces of personal identity
information are removed and the image files are converted
into a standard format.
The fMRI Data Center relies on a multidisciplinary
team of cognitive neuroscientists, computer scientists,
psychologists, and mathematicians. For example, Dartmouth
computer scientists Javed Aslam and Daniel Rockmore
are developing sophisticated search engines and image
analysis tools to allow researchers to fully scrutinize
the brain scans. These tools will also enable a new
analysis of fMRI data that have already been collected
and published.
"The fMRI Data Center not only provides the tools to
make the most of available data, but it also stimulates
dialogue across the scientific community," says Steve
Breckler, NSF's acting director for cognitive neuroscience.
"Researchers and educators with modest budgets will
now have access to recent fMRI data."
For the fMRI Data Center, see: http://www.fmridc.org/
Editors Notes:
Dartmouth Media Contact:
Sue Knapp
(603) 646-3661/Sue.Knapp@Dartmouth.edu
The fMRI Data Center will be featured in a presentation
at the 2001 annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience
Society in New York City, Monday March 26 at 5:30pm
in the New York Marriott World Trade Center.
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