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Centralizing neurofibromatosis experimental tool knowledge with the NF Research Tools Database.

ABSTRACT: Experimental tools and resources, such as animal models, cell lines, antibodies, genetic reagents and biobanks, are key ingredients in biomedical research. Investigators face multiple challenges when trying to understand the availability, applicability and accessibility of these tools. A major challenge is keeping up with current information about the numerous tools available for a particular research problem. A variety of disease-agnostic projects such as the Mouse Genome Informatics database and the Resource Identification Initiative curate a number of types of research tools. Here, we describe our efforts to build upon these resources to develop a disease-specific research tool resource for the neurofibromatosis (NF) research community. This resource, the NF Research Tools Database, is an open-access database that enables the exploration and discovery of information about NF type 1-relevant animal models, cell lines, antibodies, genetic reagents and biobanks. Users can search and explore tools, obtain detailed information about each tool as well as read and contribute their observations about the performance, reliability and characteristics of tools in the database. NF researchers will be able to use the NF Research Tools Database to promote, discover, share, reuse and characterize research tools, with the goal of advancing NF research. Database URL: https://tools.nf.synapse.org/.

SUBMITTER: Clayton A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9218993 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:While art is omnipresent in human history, the neural mechanisms of how we perceive, value and differentiate art has only begun to be explored. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies suggested that art acts as secondary reward, involving brain activity in the ventral striatum and prefrontal cortices similar to primary rewards such as food. However, potential similarities or unique characteristics of art-related neuroscience (or neuroesthetics) remain elusive, also because of a lack of adequate experimental tools: the available collections of art stimuli often lack standard image definitions and normative ratings. Therefore, we here provide a large set of well-characterized, novel art images for use as visual stimuli in psychological and neuroimaging research. The stimuli were created using a deep learning algorithm that applied different styles of popular paintings (based on artists such as Klimt or Hundertwasser) on ordinary animal, plant and object images which were drawn from established visual stimuli databases. The novel stimuli represent mundane items with artistic properties with proposed reduced dimensionality and complexity compared to paintings. In total, 2,332 novel stimuli are available open access as "art.pics" database at https://osf.io/BTWNQ/ with standard image characteristics that are comparable to other common visual stimuli material in terms of size, variable color distribution, complexity, intensity and valence, measured by image software analysis and by ratings derived from a human experimental validation study [n = 1,296 (684f), age 30.2 ± 8.8 y.o.]. The experimental validation study further showed that the art.pics elicit a broad and significantly different variation in subjective value ratings (i.e., liking and wanting) as well as in recognizability, arousal and valence across different art styles and categories. Researchers are encouraged to study the perception, processing and valuation of art images based on the art.pics database which also enables real reward remuneration of the rated stimuli (as art prints) and a direct comparison to other rewards from e.g., food or money. Key Messages: We provide an open access, validated and large set of novel stimuli (n = 2,332) of standardized art images including normative rating data to be used for experimental research. Reward remuneration in experimental settings can be easily implemented for the art.pics by e.g., handing out the stimuli to the participants (as print on premium paper or in a digital format), as done in the presented validation task. Experimental validation showed that the art.pics' images elicit a broad and significantly different variation in subjective value ratings (i.e., liking, wanting) across different art styles and categories, while size, color and complexity characteristics remained comparable to other visual stimuli databases.

Project description:Background: Many tools used to analyze microarrays in different conditions have been described. However, the integration of the deregulated genes within coherent metabolic pathways is lacking. Currently no objective selection criterion, based on biological functions exists, to determine a threshold demonstrating that a gene is indeed differentially expressed. Methodology/Principal Findings: To improve transcriptomic analysis of microarrays, we propose a new statistical approach, which takes into account biological parameters. We present an iterative method to optimise the selection of differentially expressed gene in two experimental conditions. The stringency level of gene selection was associated simultaneously with the p-value of expression variation and the occurrence rate parameter, which is associated with the percentage of donors whose transcriptomic profile is similar. Our method intertwines stringency level settings, biological data and a knowledge database to highlight molecular interactions using networks and pathways. Analysis performed during iterations helped us select the optimal threshold required for the most pertinent selection of differently expressed genes. Conclusions/significance: We have applied this approach to the well documented mechanism of human macrophage response to lipopolysaccharide stimulation. For example, we thus verified that our method was able to determine with the highest degree of accuracy the best threshold for selecting genes, which are truly differentially expressed. Macrophages isolated from six heathy donnor was/or not stimulated. Paired data, i.e. LPS stimulated macrophages versus unstimulated macrophages from the same donor have been compared (eg, Donor1_LPS vs Donor1_NT; see processed data file linked below). The six comparaisons have been globaly analyse using two parameters, i.e. threshod and occurency, associated with a request of a database knowledge. Both parameters has been tune to define the best setting allowing to optimize the selection of differentially expressed genes

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Centralizing neurofibromatosis experimental tool knowledge with the NF Research Tools Database.

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