BRAIN GENE ONTOLOGY AND SIMULATION SYSTEM (BGOS) FOR A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE BRAIN

Abstract

This article presents some preliminary results on a brain-gene ontology project that is concerned with the collection and the presentation, in a form of ontology, of various concepts, facts, data, software simulators, graphs, videos, animations, and other information forms, related to brain functions, brain diseases, their genetic basis and the relationship between all of them. The first version of the brain-gene ontology (BGO) has been completed as a structure and as an initial implementation in the Protégé ontology-building environment. The BGO allows users to: navigate through the rich information space of brain functions and brain diseases, brain related genes and their activities in certain parts of the brain and their relation to brain diseases; to run simulations; to download data that can be used in a software machine learning environment such as WEKA and NeuCom to train prediction or classification models; to visualize relationship information; to add some new information as the BGO has an evolving structure. The BGO is designed to facilitate active learning and research in the areas of bioinformatics, neuroinformatics, information engineering, and knowledge management. Different parts of it can be used by different users, from a school level to postgraduate and PhD student level. A further development of the BGO is discussed, where more data and information will be added, that will include both a higher level information on cognitive functions and consciousness, and a lower level quantum information.