MoDaL meetings: Discovering the Neurinfo core facility, with Isabelle Corouge 

An article by Sofia Strubbia for the MoDaL project

Isabelle COROUGE

Whether genomics, imaging data vitro ou in vivo, animal or plant models, data in life sciences are now mostly processed “in silos”. The MoDaL unifying project (Multi-Scale Data Links), carried by the network Biogenouest, aims to decompartmentalize resources and promote moments of exchange and collaborative work around the integration of multi-scale biological data. The purpose of these meetings is to discover the diversity of profiles of research in biology and health in the West.

I met Isabelle Corouge for the MoDaL meetings on October 26, 2020 and we talked about multi-modal images and interoperability in the field of neuroscience.

Presentation and scientific background: 

A Research Engineer at the Université Rennes 1 since 2009, Isabelle Corouge acquired an expertise in image processing during her doctoral thesis at the Université Rennes 1 on MRIs of brain structures for the study of gray matter. She continued her journey with a post-doctorate at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States on the study of white matter.

Today Isabelle Corouge is technical manager of the core facility Neuroinfo.

The brain, in pictures:

Among the equipment present within the Neurinfo core facility, three are particularly recent and innovative:  

• Magnetic Resonance Imager (MRI), used for clinical and research care
• Electroencephalograph (EEG) for the measurement ofelectrical activity of the brain, can be used off and under MRI
• Near infrared spectroscope (NIRS) for the study of hemodynamic variations, ie. changes in oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin concentrations resulting from brain activity. This NIRS equipment is also MRI compatible.

These devices can work in pairs (two or three) to have a maximum of additional information on a single subject at the same time. 

The data produced therefore include the cerebral morphology, the neuronal activity of the patient or the quantification of hemodynamic parameters. This information can prove invaluable for intensive care physicians, but also for the rehabilitation of patients following stroke in neuro-feedback studies where the patient's brain activities are monitored while being asked to imagine capable actions. activate certain areas of the brain. 

Among the possible clinical applications, psychiatry is another area that can benefit from these technologies, in particular for working with patients with resistant depression, who do not respond to drug treatment. These techniques make it possible to stimulate specific areas of the brain, such as the amygdala, involved in the recognition and evaluation of the valence. emotional sensory stimuli, in associative learning and in the associated behavioral and vegetative responses, in particular in fear and anxiety. 

An example of a tool facilitating interoperability:

Shanoir (Sharing NeurOImaging Resources) is a open source application designed to share, archive, search and visualize data from multiple modalities in neuroimaging, on humans and small animals. Shanoir allows these health data to be shared securely in large-scale multicentre projects. It also comes with many features such as data anonymization for nationwide clinical studies.

With Shanoir, the Neurinfo core facility hosts data from more than 60 sites spread across France and thus promotes the interoperability of medical image management and analysis systems.

Shanoir's national visibility was recently strengthened by its deployment in France Life Imaging (FLI), Biology and Health infrastructure created in 2012 to promote and harmonize innovative technologies in biomedical imaging.