Our program project proposes a combined psychophysical and neurophysiological study of the neural mechanisms of itch. The proposal requires the integrative efforts of three different laboratories each with different skills and experimental approaches. A core facility is proposed that will provide instrumentation, statistics, informatics and administration to each project. These four divisions of the core are designed to facilitate the planning of experiments as well as the collection, analysis, sharing, interpretation and evaluation of the data obtained. The instrumentation portion of core will assemble and maintain the instruments, hardware and software that will allow each project to deliver the same experimental stimuli and to use similar methods for experimental control, data acquisition and data analyses. The statistics portion of the core will provide assistance in formulating proper experimental designs, modeling and statistically analyzing results in each project and in making direct comparisons of results from one project with those of another: The informatics portion of the core will manage and develop a secure website that will allow members of each project to send data to a central repository at Yale that is accessible to each participant individually or for combined viewing by a group of participants through teleconferences over the intemet. The administration portion of the core will organize and schedule meetings with project leaders to discuss goals, data collection and interpretation, progress and problems at each of the three institutions in the form of ? regular teleconferences over the intemet between project participants, sometimes including institutional internal advisors, and in the form of face-to-face meetings each year with extemal advisors. The advisors will pnDvide evaluations and suggestions to help the projects achieve their objectives. Thus, the core is central resource for the use of common methodologies and statistical analyses and will provide an effective means of sharing, evaluating and integrating the psychophysical and neurophysiological information required to further our understanding of the neural mechanisms of itch.
Our development and use of a central data repository and website as part of the informatics portion of the core will enable the sharing of scientific information with investigators in other laboratories and with the general public. This will increase public awareness of important issues and findings in itch and pain research and thus contribute to public health.
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