Action, Language and Neuroinformatics: An Introduction

Abstract

This Special Issue is based on presentations at the Workshop on “Action, Language and Neuroinformatics” held in July of 2011. It contributes to the view that neuroinformatics must include the informatics of computational modeling of neural systems as well as the development and linkage of database resources for both models and empirical data. The papers introduce key results in empirical research, computational modeling, and neuroinformatics for two areas of neuroscience–neurolinguistics and the study of neural mechanisms underlying manual action and its recognition– and assess ways in which the study of language processing can benefit from models of action production. Because the two areas span the spectrum from animal studies to human studies, and from basic sensorimotor processes to cognition, they provide a setting for assessing the diverse challenges of creating computational models for neuroscience, for providing databases for the very different forms of empirical data now exploited by neuroscience, and for linkage of data and models in systems and cognitive neuroscience generally, not just within our two focal areas. The papers in this Special Issue are divided into four parts: Part 1, Databasing the Brain, presents three approaches to the development of neuroinformatics databases, including a new methodology for linking data and models in systems and cognitive neuroscience, tools for federating online neuroinformatics databases, and tools to link gene expression data to cognitive brain systems. Part 2, Action, Imitation and Gesture, provides two cases studies linking research on monkeys, apes, humans and machines, exemplifying neuroinformatics in the wide sense that embraces computational modeling as well as database construction. Part 3, Language, develops this story in relation to the uniquely human capacity for language, offering models of human syntactic encoding and decoding, actor-based language comprehension and the linkage of visual scenes to language via template construction grammar, in each case considering how to test the models against data from human behavior and brain imaging. Finally, Part 4 builds upon a series of intense discussions held at the Workshop on the present and future of neuroinformatics, with especial emphasis on the integration of computational models with empirical data.