By: Cormac Rea
A complex entity full of grey matter structures that perform distinct functions and the white matter tracts that scaffold them, the human brain contains a vast puzzle of regions, interconnections and, sometimes, disconnections.
When we injure our brains at any age – or when breakdowns in connectivity occur in the brain – it is often a race against the clock for doctors, medical professionals and scientists to identify a root cause and initiate effective treatment.
For parents of newborn infants, this is an especially terrifying ordeal. Brain injury that occurs during birth or within immature newborn infants requires early and precise treatment to determine positive outcomes and avoid neurodevelopmental impairment.
A challenge for medical practitioners is to connect dots at speed between specific patient scans (ie. MRI etc.) and the broad existing data sets on various types of neonatal brain injuries.
Disconnectome – a Data Sciences Institute supported research software development project – is a handy desktop application that could be installed on a clinician’s computer and help speed up the process of identifying injury and appropriate treatment.
“One of the typical challenges in research software development is being able to package the software developed by the researchers in a way that makes it easy for others to use and run in a user-friendly way,” said Data Sciences Institute Senior Software Developer, Wisam Al Abed.
“My main task was to take the algorithms developed by the Disconnectome research team and build a desktop application with them that can be run with a click of a button. I built a simple user-friendly interface that is browser based that allows users to specify which MRI images they want to run the algorithm on as well as where to store the results.”
Co-led by scientists Steven Miller and Vann Chau (Neurosciences & Mental Health, SickKids Research Institute; Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto), the Disconnectome project was provided with access to a DSI professional research software developer.
“DSI funding offers an important opportunity to bring the research advances from quantitative MRI to the bedside – making the wealth of data generated from these images accessible to clinicians to promote the best possible outcomes for their patients,” said Miller.
The DSI Research Software Development Support Program supports researchers to refine existing software tools to improve usability and robustness, or to build new tools, disseminate research software beyond the research space in which it is created, and enhance existing functionality.
“We have had tremendous response from a wide range of research teams for our competitive calls for DSI support,” said Gary Bader, DSI Associate Director, Research and Software.
“This is clearly an important program to better support cutting-edge research, while fostering the collaboration, equitable and open science principles at the DSI.”
Learn more about the Research Software Development Support Program and how to apply for support. Deadline for 2024-2025 applications is October 18, 2024.