Summary
Objectives: Survey current work primarily funded by the US Human Brain Project (HBP) that involves
substantial use of images. Organize this work around a framework based on the physical
organization of the body.
Methods: Pointers to individual research efforts were obtained through the HBP home page as
well as personal contacts from HBP annual meetings. References from these sources
were followed to find closely related work. The individual research efforts were then
studied and characterized.
Results: The subject of the review is the intersection of neuroinformatics (information about
the brain), imaging informatics (information about images), and structural informatics
(information about the physical structure of the body). Of the 30 funded projects
currently listed on the HBP web site, at least 22 make heavy use of images. These
projects are described in terms of broad categories of structural imaging, functional
imaging, and image-based brain information systems.
Conclusions: Understanding the most complex entity known (the brain) gives rise to many interesting
and difficult problems in informatics and computer science. Although much progress
has been made by HBP and other neuroinformatics researchers, a great many problems
remain that will require substantial informatics research efforts. Thus, the HPB can
and should be seen as an excellent driving application area for biomedical informatics
research.
Keywords
Neuroinformatics - imaging informatics - structural informatics - human brain project