Neuroinformatics in India: Building academic and research excellence in the Developing World.
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1
TIFR, National Centre for Biological Sciences, India
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2
National Brain Research Centre, India
India is the most recent entrant into the INCF, and is rapidly building up its national node and activities. The country node has been named as the "Indian National Node for Neuroinformatics" and more than a dozen institutions have already agreed to participate in national node activities. These institutions span several major disciplines, namely:
(a) The Indian Institutes of Technology at Delhi, Bombay & Madras,
(b) The Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore & Indian Institute of Science Education and Research-Pune
(c) The Indian Institutes of Information Technology at Hyderabad, Allahabad & Bangalore.
(d) The medical institutions as All-India Institute of Medical Sciences-Delhi, National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences-Bangalore, and Sree Chitra Medical Institute-Trivandrum.
(e) The mathematical institutions as Indian Statistical Institute-Calcutta & Institute of Mathematical Sciences - Madras.
(f) Scientific institutions as Tata Institute of Fundamental Research-Bangalore/Bombay, Institute of Biotechnology & Applied Bioinformatics-Bangalore, National Centre for Biological Sciences-Bangalore, and National Brain Research Centre-Delhi.
(g) University systems as University of Hyderabad.
(h) Industrial companies as Cellworks, Bangalore.
The first formal activity of the Indian node was the INCF meeting on Multiscale Modeling held in Bangalore in November 2009. A second meeting, to coincide with the National Node meeting, is planned for November 2010. During the November meeting, there evolved two research projects which were enthusiastically supported:
(1) Multiscale models involving biochemical and electrical signalling along with the simulator functionality, the range spanning from dendrite dynamics to network excitation.
(2) Brain as a tissue where cellular and gross imaging methods, biophysical transport processes, and spatiotemporal gene expression profiles, are used for structural and functional studies.
Another key activity of the Node is to promote neuroinformatics research. A first major step toward this was to enlist the active support of the Government of India through its various ministries:
(A) Dept. of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology: There is a Task Force on "Neuroscience" where the area of neuroinformatics, computational neuroscience, and neuroimaging is an active field of support.
(B)Dept. of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology: There is a special R&D program area on "Perception Engineering", which uses neuromorphic systems and computational neuroscience principles to develop newer clinical, robotic, or technical applications.
The National node will also strengthen ongoing activities in the area. For example there has been an annual workshop on "Computational Neuroscience" that has been held for almost a decade, which the Indian National Node will enthusiastically support. This workshop rotates through major cities in India and takes place in university settings, where students and young faculty from around the country are offered travel fellowships, and are exposed to advanced topics and hands on experience.
As a developing nation, we are keen that the activities of the National Node contribute both to the academic growth in the field, and to eventual biomedical applications supported by data-driven work in neuroscience.
To conclude, Neuroinformatics in India is vibrant and growing, and the fields of computational neurology, neuroimaging (microscale and macroscale), and neuroengineering are seeing a great deal of emphasis from researchers and funding agency alike. We hope to build on the large talent pool in neuroscience and in information technology in India, and are keen to draw on the experience and scientific networking within the INCF to strengthen the field.
Conference:
Neuroinformatics 2010 , Kobe, Japan, 30 Aug - 1 Sep, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
General neuroinformatics
Citation:
Bhalla
U and
Roy
P
(2010). Neuroinformatics in India: Building academic and research excellence in the Developing World..
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Neuroinformatics 2010 .
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.13.00087
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Received:
14 Jun 2010;
Published Online:
14 Jun 2010.
*
Correspondence:
Upinder Bhalla, TIFR, National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India, bhalla@ncbs.res.in