A Structure-Centered Portal for Child Psychiatry

Numerous web-based resources and databases are available and are being generated for today’s neuroscience researcher. We have developed a child-psychiatry oriented portal as an effort to deliver a knowledge environment wrapper that provides organization and integration of multiple information sources. Organized semantically as a Structure-Centered Database, following the conceptual design like introduced in the cell-centered database [1], the portal groups information sources by context and permits the user to interactively narrow or broaden the scope of the information resources that are available and relevant to the specific context.
HTML5 and JavaScript are used to develop the user interface. The HTML5 canvas based clickable human brain atlas allows point-and-click feature to choose of different brain regions. The current atlas images are based on FreeSurfer segmented structural MRI scan of a normal fifteen-year-old female subject. Alternatively, a drop down list of different brain region is also provided in the search section along with a list of diagnoses, genders, age ranges, and species. Public web services are used to query various information resources such as the PubMed, Entrez Gene, and IBVD[2] and databases such as NIH pediatric database, CandiShare[3], PING[4], and OASIS datasets on XNAT central[5].
This portal aids an investigator find various child-psychiatry information resources available on the internet which are relevant to his/her research. The result of the database queries direct the user towards MRI data available for download that matches the search parameters. An inline frame enables the user to view the results from the different resources in the same screen or the user can choose to open each of the resources in separate tabs.

1 The cell centered database project: an update on building community resources for managing and sharing 3D imaging data. Martone ME, et. al. J Struct Biol. 2008; 161: 220-31.
2 The internet brain volume database: a public resource for storage and retrieval of volumetric data. Kennedy DN, et. al. Neuroinformatics. 2012; 10:129-40.
3 CANDIShare: A Resource for Pediatric Neuroimaging Data. Kennedy DN, et al. Neuroinformatics. 2011 Oct 18.
4 Association of common genetic variants in GPCPD1 with scaling of visual cortical surface area in humans. Bakken TE, et al. PNAS USA. 2012 Mar 6; 109: 3985-90.
5 Open Access Series of Imaging Studis (OASIS). Marcus DS, et al. J Cogn Neurosci. 2007; 19: 1498-1507.