The long-term goal of the proposed research is to create a fully functional online workbench for obtaining information about the biological circuits that make up the brain, and for modeling the functional organization of this circuitry in health and in a broad range of neurological diseases, including Alzheimer?s, chronic pain, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson?s, and stroke. One strength of this approach in early stages of development is that it complements experimental systems neuroscience research in the lab on the fundamental structural and chemical organization of limbic system circuits that control the basic drives and emotions, along with learning and memory. The foundation of the neuroinformatics research proposed here is a functioning, relatively heavily used website begun in 2001 and called the Brain Architecture Knowledge Management System (Google: BAMS). It is currently the only online system that integrates neuroscience information at four levels of organization: gray matter Regions, neuronal Cell Types making up regions, white matter axonal Connections between regions and cell types, and expressed Molecules.
