1:30 PM-2:30 PM
Room: Texas Ballroom B
Chair: Kathy Yelick, University of California, Berkeley
Developments in modern computer-aided microscopies and advances in high performance computational infrastructure offer great promise for delivery of vital new information about the structural and functional dynamics of the nervous system. Neuroscientists interested in correlating structure and function are involved in research at several levels, ranging from modeling molecular events and subcellular organelles at synapses to large-scale mapping of brain systems. An increasing number of researchers are interested in the ways in which single neurons and small networks of neurons process and store information. Although this has been an objective in neuroscience for quite some time, interest has increased recently partly because it is now possible to create detailed models of single neurons and to use these as the starting point for modeling the complex properties of neurons and neuronal networks. Breakthroughs in optical imaging methods and image processing have provided spectacular new opportunities for deriving information about the 3-D relationships between biological structures. As a consequence of improvements in performance of computing and communications, the information sciences are providing opportunities to enhance the neuroscientist's capabilities to integrate and share the fruits of the revolutions in molecular and cellular neurobiology and imaging sciences. Structure-function work which is beginning to explode in 3-D is also rapidly moving into the realm of 4-D imaging in which temporal reconstruction of events occurring in a 3-D structure is possible. The speaker will describe the development of novel techniques for 3 dimensional visualization of neuronal structures and modeling of their dynamic properties. He will place special emphasis on examples that involve the application of parallel processing and distributed computing.
Mark H. Ellisman
Center for Research on Biological Structure and the National
Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research
University of California, San Diego
MMD, 11/16/98