Neuroinformatics for Neuropsychology Vinoth Jagaroo Neuroinformatics for Neuropsychology 123 Vinoth Jagaroo Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders Emerson College 120 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02116 USA [email protected] and Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Neuroscience Program Boston University School of Medicine 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 New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009930050 © Springer Science+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 information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, 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 information technology 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 informatics for neuropsychology more than a decade ago as a graduate student in behavioral neuroscience at Boston University School of Medicine. My track in this broad interdisciplinary area cut across neuropsychology, neuroanatomy and neurobiology, and my focus was visual cognitive neuroscience. I had concurrently held a position in a large information technology unit at the university where I gained experience in computer networks and database 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 brain” 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 (bioinformatics) and its subspecialty in the neurosciences (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 Human Brain 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 research, data analysis, problem solving, 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 data modeling 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 – 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 – behavioral neurology, psychiatry, clinical psychology, speech-language pathol- ogy, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. The introduction offered by this book is non-technical. The reader does not require a background in computer science 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