New technologies for monitoring brain activity are creating unparalleled quantities of information, according to a report from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI.)
The data could provide new clues into how the brain works, but only if researchers can interpret it.
Neuroscientists can now harness the power of distributed computing by using "Thunder," a library of tools developers at the HHMI Janelia Research Campus.
"Thunder speeds the analysis of data sets that are so large and complex they would take days or weeks to analyze on a single workstation," the HHMI report reads.
Thunder is a library for studying large-scale neural data. It is built on Spark, a new framework for cluster computing, and developed by Janelia group leaders Jeremy Freeman, Misha Ahrens, and other colleagues at Janelia and the University of California.
Research was published in the July 27 edition of the journal Nature Methods.
The researchers used Thunder to quickly find patterns in high-resolution images collected from the brains of active zebrafish and mice with multiple imaging techniques.
"For some analyses, you can load the data, start it running, and then come back the next day," Freeman says. "But if you need to tweak the analysis and run it again, then you have to wait another night."
They used Thunder to analyze imaging data from a new microscope developed to monitor the activity of just about every individual cell in the brain of a zebrafish as it behaves in response to visual stimuli.
That technology was described in a separate paper published in the same issue of Nature Methods.
"When you record information from the brain, you don't know the best way to get the information that you need out of it. Every data set is different. You have ideas, but whether or not they generate insights is an open question until you actually apply them," says Ahrens.
Understanding how the brain functions and responds to stimuli could lead to advancements in human intelligence, learning disabilities, brain injuries, and improved treatment for mental illness.
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