Visualizing Alzheimer's disease research

Abstract

Abstract"There is a space of highly complex systems for which we lack deep understanding because few techniques exist for visualization of data whose structure and content are continually changing." -Benjamin Fry, http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/ As the quote suggests, there is a need for new techniques to visualize both emerging and accumulated data in complex fields such as the biological sciences. This paper reports on the early exploration of visualization techniques through the interdisciplinary development of a research data visualization tool at the University of Cincinnati. Undergraduate Digital Design students under the combined instruction of design and biomedical faculty formed collaborative teams to develop a prototype visualverbal, web-based, dynamic information model (DISPLAY) for extracting, comparing and manipulating research findings related to Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Although the initial prototype focused on AD, the goal was to identify principles and techniques applicable to all types of biological data. ProblemIncreased specialization and an increased rate of data acquisition are taxing the human capacity for assimilation of data into knowledge. This is particularly acute in the biological sciences. As an example, over the past 30 years there has been an exponential increase in the number of papers published in the field of AD research, (Fig. 1). This explosion of data, combined with the inherent complexity of biological systems and the need to compare data from various fields and various levels of analysis, require improved techniques for understanding the data and developing new hypotheses. Figure 1.One means for overcoming these problems is information visualization. Scientists, computer engineers, and programmers are entering the fields of bioinformatics to press visualization forward. However, one potential impediment is the relative paucity of collaborations between scientists and designers. The authors formed a collaboration to introduce design students to scientific approaches to information and to make scientists more aware of design principles for scientific visualization. Collaborative ProjectThe authors, a designer and a biomedical scientist, created a course to integrate biological research with teaching in digital design, specifically dynamic information visualization. The class project, conducted with two classes of fifth year (Senior) Digital Design students at the University of Cincinnati, developed data visualization techniques to visualize hypotheses related to AD.The initial collaboration focused on the presentation of scientific information and the need to develop a common vocabulary between design and science. One bridge concept used the analogy of language: with nouns being equivalent to biological entities at different levels of analysis such as "gene", "plaque", and "dementia", and verbs being equivalent to actions such as "cleavage", "deposition" or "infection".Visualization tools and techniques were discussed at a similar conceptual level. Hue was identified as...