COMPUTER MICROSCOPY AND NEUROINFORMATICS SYSTEM

DESCRIPTION: We will develop a neuroinformatics system that will allow neuroscientists to collect extremely large images of microscopic specimens at the highest magnification of a light microscope, to store them in a web-enabled database, and to share them with colleagues and students over the Internet and intranets. Once collected, these extremely large images will be in effect, "virtual slides." The virtual slides, composed of thousands of fields of view, will enable researchers to view complete tissue specimens at any level of magnification. Important information about the brain often requires examination of a specimen at several different magnifications. For instance, low magnification is required to identify large anatomical regions while higher magnification is required to identify finer structure, such as individual cells, dendrites, spines, etc. Our innovative system will provide new opportunities for the neuroscience community to share research over the Internet. In Phase II we expect to expand the system: to use illumination techniques other than brightfield (e.g. fluorescence); to merge virtual slides obtained from multi-illumination techniques into a multi-layer virtual slide; and to combine graphic overlays with virtual slides to create high-resolution atlases. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: Internet system for archiving and comparing images for clinical pathology; commercial web sites for education and research within an beyond the neuroscience area; a service to create and maintain the virtual slides and database for a customer's web site; and creation of large-scale images for text books and stereotaxic atlases.