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Neuroinformatics for Vinoth Jagaroo

Neuroinformatics for Neuropsychology

123 Vinoth Jagaroo Department of & Disorders Emerson College 120 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02116 USA [email protected] and

Department of and the Behavioral Program Boston University School of 715 Albany Street Boston, MA 02118 USA [email protected]

ISBN 978-1-4419-0059-3 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-0060-9 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0060-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009930050

© Springer +Business Media, LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, , or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) I dedicate this book to my parents, Barath and Sona Preface

The idea for this book was conceived over many years and through many influences. The fields of neuropsychology, general neuroscience, and were certainly among the main influences. It was in particular an unusual context in which I was on the one hand exposed to academic and clinical neuropsychology and on the other to information technology that gave rise to the ideas that would eventually lead to this work. I began thinking about for neuropsychology more than a decade ago as a graduate student in at Boston University School of Medicine. My track in this broad interdisciplinary area cut across neuropsychology, and neurobiology, and my focus was visual . I had concurrently held a position in a large information technology unit at the university where I gained experience in computer networks and program- ming. The neuropsychology component of my training involved neuropsychological assessment, which was carried out at the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital, one of the teaching hospitals of Boston University Medical School. It was at these institutions that many legendary neuropsychologists had pioneered their craft and where some famous assessment instruments were developed. As I engaged in carrying out neuropsychological assessment, I could not help being struck by how comfortably this subspecialty of neuropsychology had con- tained critical problems tied to its origins and its development. Psychometric testing had played a huge part in the shaping of neuropsychological batteries and in some cases assessment batteries were nothing more than modified psychometric tests. When tests were developed from scratch in clinical neuropsychology, they were typically developed around symptom clusters or operational tasks. Assessment tools bore little tie to highly defined neuroanatomic systems or to rich conceptual frameworks of cognition. Where was the alignment between neuropsychological assessment tools, which were developed in earlier generations, and that rich body of theory on neurocognitive principles that had arisen through cognitive neuro- science and cognitive neurobiology, in a more recent generation? The “decade of the ” had brought forth so many neural systems and modules that related, with relative precision, cognitive processes to the brain. In comparison, neuropsycholog- ical assessment tools and neuropsychological models of cognition appeared rather unsophisticated. It would have been possible to strive for reconciliation between

vii viii Preface assessment tools and functional neuroanatomic/neurocognitive systems if assess- ment took on a more computational dimension, but again, this consideration was absent in neuropsychology. My interest in the representational model of spatial neglect had me comb- ing through primate neuroscience literature on posterior parietal mechanisms for coordinate-based spatiotopic transformations. The conventional assessment tools for neglect, e.g., line bisection, letter cancellation, and clock and figure drawings, by virtue of their simplicity, could generate dramatic pictures of neglect, but had no potential to relate to neural models of neglect. It was this problem that made me look to computerized methods, which in this case could be devised to tap into the com- plexities of neglect. I began work on an informatics system involving a grid-based screen interfaced with a database. The coordinates of presented visual stimuli and the gradients of neglect could be recorded and subjected to various kinds of analysis (this is described in a subsection of this book). Exploring informatics systems for neuropsychological applications inevitably had me surveying the larger field of biological informatics () and its subspecialty in the (neuroinformatics). The levels of sophistication attained by these disciplines were astounding as was the unique and transforma- tive potential that they conferred. It was evident that modern biomedical science was inseparable from bioinformatics. The Human Genome Project was in large part a bioinformatics project and so much of the Project centered on neuroinformatics. The absence of neuropsychology on the vast and flourishing landscape of neuroinformatics was stark and striking. The scenario was that most of the sub- disciplines in neuroscience had discovered a powerful new technology, enabling novel methods of , analysis, , and knowledge build- ing. With neuroinformatics, they could capture, manipulate, and visualize data in ways never before conceived. Neuropsychology, however, remained quite oblivious to this informatics-based revolution in the neurosciences. Neuropsychology, espe- cially clinical neuropsychology, had by the 1980 s solidified an identity that had been shaped over many decades. It had developed a modus operandi that was inti- mately tied to its tools and models, most of which were rooted in periods that long preceded the modern era of cognitive-brain sciences. By the late 1990 s, informat- ics had become a tour de force in neuroscience, but neuropsychology, lying snug under its canopy of conventions, showed almost no awareness or understanding of the potential that was spelled by neuroinformatics. In February 2005, I presented a paper at the US annual meeting of the Interna- tional Neuropsychological Society, in St. Louis, Missouri. The paper described the impact of neuroinformatics in neuroscience, and a case was laid out for neuroinfor- matics in neuropsychology. I soon after began to structure the paper as a manuscript for a review publication. Research for the paper brought me into contact with a small but steadily increasing number of individuals whose work in neuropsychology tied in with informatics. They shared valuable data with me and were also keen about a larger account of neuroinformatics in neuropsychology. During this period, the Internet had also been transitioning from its first generation to its second, marked Preface ix by a host of web-based technologies for and collective knowledge building. Needless to say, with all these factors, what began as manuscript for a review publication quickly evolved into a book. This book introduces the field of neuroinformatics to neuropsychologists. It tours the field of neuroinformatics and articulates ways by which neuroinformatics can be integrated with neuropsychological research and practice. It describes various applications for neuropsychology. The book is an ambitious first account of neu- roinformatics for neuropsychology Ð it discusses the kinds of changes required in the discipline for a successful integration with neuroinformatics, and it also lays out various issues that are likely to arise as neuroinformatics becomes an everyday part of neuropsychology. It presents a vision of 21st century neuropsychology defined by neuroinformatics. The book is aimed at neuropsychologists and to those in related disciplines Ð behavioral , psychiatry, clinical , speech-language pathol- ogy, , and cognitive neuroscience. The introduction offered by this book is non-technical. The reader does not require a background in or computational neuroscience. A reader of general neuropsychological literature will have no problem understanding the material presented. Numerous possibilities for the realization of neuroinformatics in neuropsy- chology are conveyed by this book. It is the author’s hope that the book will help accelerate discussion and enhance awareness of neuroinformatics for neu- ropsychology. A theme carried throughout the book is that neuroinformatics for neuropsychology is not an option but an inevitability brought about by technological and theoretical advances of our time.

Boston, Massachusetts Vinoth Jagaroo Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the many individuals who helped make this book possible. The encouragement and support I received from my colleagues, Daniel Kempler, Cynthia Bartlett, and David Maxwell in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Emerson College, was simply invaluable. The very same must be said of the many years of generous support that I have received from Marlene Oscar Berman of the Behavioral Neuroscience Program and the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Boston University School of Medicine. Research for a core section of the book, on neuroinformatics applications and models for neuropsychology, could not have been completed were it not for the cooperation that I received from twelve individuals Ð who graciously addressed my inquiries and provided me valuable data on their work: Dennis Reeves and Joseph Bleiberg (automated neuropsychological assessment); Mark Baggett, Mark Kelley, and Daniel Christensen (Internet-enabled assessment systems pioneered in clinical research programs of the US Army); Ho-Chuan Huang (computerized cancellation test system); Frank Guenther (computational model of speech production); Huber- tus Axer and Jan Jantzen (aphasia database); Carol Neidle (sign language database project); Curtis Deutsch (behavioral phenomics and dysmorphology); and Robert Bilder (cognitive and neuropsychiatric phenomics). I also wish to thank Stephen Koslow, the former director of the Office of Neu- roinformatics at the US National Institutes of Health, for reviewing my synthesis of the , the Neuroinformatics Program of the National Insti- tutes of Health, and the Neuroinformatics Working Group of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Jane Emes, my diligent graduate student assistant deserves enormous credit for her assistance with research and preparation of the manuscript. Finally, I am indebted to my colleague and friend, Jon Hemperley, the former manager of Information Technology at Office of the President at Boston University, for years of mentorship on information technology systems.

xi Contents

1 Introduction ...... 1 1.1 AnOverviewofBioinformatics...... 1 1.2 WhatIsNeuroinformatics?...... 2 1.3 Bringing Neuroinformatics to Neuropsychology ...... 3 2 Current Neuroinformatics Applications and Infrastructure .... 7 2.1 Brain Image Construction, Analysis, and Morphometric Tools...... 7 2.1.1 Examples of Image Construction, Analysis, and Morphometric Tools ...... 8 2.2 Brain Image Atlases, and Repositories ...... 10 2.2.1 Examples of Image Databases ...... 10 2.3 Tools and Databases for Mapping Neural Structure and Connectivity Patterns ...... 12 2.3.1 Examples of Tools and Databases for the Study ofNeuralArchitecture...... 12 2.4 Tools and Methods for the Simulation of andNeuralCircuits...... 13 2.4.1 Examples of Tools for the Simulation of Neurons . . . 14 2.5 Database and Knowledge Discovery Systems for Clinical and Academic Research ...... 18 2.6 Neuroinformatics and Infrastructure ...... 20 2.6.1 Examples of NI Organizations, Infrastructure, and Management ...... 21 3 Neuroinformatics for Neuropsychology ...... 25 3.1 Differentiating Between the General Computer Applications in Neuropsychology and Neuroinformatics Systems for Neuropsychology ...... 25 3.2 Defining Neuropsychology-Specific Neuroinformatics Systems...... 28 3.3 Neuroinformatics Applications and Models for Neuropsychology ...... 29 3.3.1 General Neuropsychological Assessment ...... 32

xiii xiv Contents

3.3.2 Visuospatial Processing, Visual , and SpatialNeglect...... 43 3.3.3 Speech, Language, and Aphasia ...... 58 3.3.4 Phenomics and Neuropsychology ...... 75 4 Obstacles and Aids to Neuroinformatics in Neuropsychology .... 85 4.1 and Issues of Privacy ...... 86 4.2 Standardization, , and Ontologies for Neuropsychological Data ...... 88 4.3 Attitudes, Re-organization, and Training ...... 91 5 An International Society for Neuroinformatics in Neuropsychology ...... 95 6 Concluding Remarks ...... 99 6.1 Collaborative Knowledge Building in the Next Wave of the Internet: Web 2.0, Neuropsychology 2.0, and Global Network ...... 100 6.2 The Promising Politics of Informatics Infrastructure ...... 102 6.3 Prologue to Neuropsychology for the 21st Century ...... 103 References ...... 105 Index ...... 119