An online database for brain disease research

A thorough collection of gene expression summaries are provided, inclusive of patient demographics, disease subclasses, regulated biological pathways, and functional classifications.The combination of database content, structure, and query speed offers researchers an efficient tool for data mining of brain disease complete with information such as: cross-platform comparisons, biomarkers elucidation for target discovery, and lifestyle/demographic associations to brain diseases.Brain disease studies based on experiments using genome-wide measurements with microarrays are traditionally challenging as compared to other disease areas. The biological results are often hindered by statistical issues of small sample sizes, small effect sizes, and patient-to-patient variability [1-3]. Also, clinical information for patients is typically sparse, such that unknown clinical covariates can either confound or confuse many of the gene expression patterns and trends, as opposed to the primary disease. Corrections using such clinical information can greatly improve inference in determining markers for disease, as well as elucidating patterns within the disease.Technical problems in microarray data can also affect the analyses. Meaningful results are often limited by array platform-to-platform comparisons and overall organization/presentation of large data sets/results. Studies conducted on disparate platforms are inherently more difficult to analyze than those conducted on the same platform [4]. Cross-platform comparisons present analysis challenges due to differences in scaling and sensitivity (to name a few) which introduce inconsistencies in reproducibility [5-8]. Large data sets and comprehensive results summaries present another challenge that requires good organization of both analytical and bioinformatics information (e.g. expression profiles, gene summary information, pathway diagrams, fold change value comparisons, etc.) into a user-friendly format to facilitate efficient d