Program#/Poster#: 26.25/OOO68 Title: The Neuroscience Information Framework: A
teaching and educational resource for neuroscience related information Location: Halls
B-H Presentation Time: Saturday, Nov 13, 2010, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Authors: *J. S.
GRETHE1, A. BANDROWSKI1, F. IMAM1, A. GUPTA1, A. MEMON1, G. M.
SHEPHERD2, P. MILLER2, L. MARENCO2, D. VAN ESSEN3, E. REID3, G. ASCOLI4,
S. POLAVARAM4, P. R. STERNBERG5, H.-M. MUELLER5, A. RANGARAJAN5, M.
E. MARTONE1;
1
Ctr. for Res. in Biol. Systems, UCSD, La Jolla, CA; 2Neurobio., Yale Univ., New
Haven, CT; 3Anat. and Neurobiolog, Washington Univ., St Louis, MO; 4Krasnow Inst.
for Advanced Study, George Mason Univ., Fairfax, VA; 5Caltech, Pasadena, CA
Abstract: Although a plethora of resources for neuroscientists is now available on the
web, finding these resources among the billions of possible web pages continues to be a
challenge. The lack of discoverability is particularly acute for information contained in
on-line scientific databases whose dynamic content is largely opaque to web search
engines. The Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF; http://neuinfo.org) was
launched in 2008 to address the problem of finding neuroscience-relevant resources. It
provides simultaneous search across multiple information sources to connect
neuroscientists to available resources. These sources include: (1) NIF Registry: A humancurated registry of neuroscience-relevant resources; (2) NIF Web: A neuroscience
focused web index; (3) NIF Literature: A collection of neuroscience relevant corpora; (4)
NIF Database Federation: A federation of independent databases registered to the NIF,
allowing for direct search and discovery of database content, often referred to as the
“hidden web”. Semantic search through the NIF portal is enhanced through the utilization
of a comprehensive ontology (NIFSTD) covering major domains in neuroscience,
including diseases, brain anatomy, cell types, subcellular anatomy, small molecules,
techniques and resource descriptors. Through the NIFSTD vocabularies, users can
expand search using synonyms and related terms and resource providers. NIFSTD's
neuroscience-centered vocabulary for resource providers to utilize when building or
annotating tools and data. NIF has also made available a set of community tools. One set
of tools (NIFcards) allows any website or appliction the ability to link out to neuroscience
information cards from neuroscience terms contained in these resources. NIFcards
provide an easy way for resource providers to link out to the larger linked data
community. NIF also provides tools where neuroscientists can contribute their knowledge
and expertise, such as the Neurolex Wiki (http://neurolex.org), a semantically enhanced
Wiki where each page represents a neuroscience related concept.