Development of Neural Electromagnetic Ontologies (NEMO): Ontology-based Tools for Representation and Integration of Event-related Brain Potentials

We describe a first-generation ontology for representation and integration of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The ontology is designed following OBO “best practices” and is augmented with tools to perform ontology-based labeling and annotation of ERP data, and a database that enables semantically based reasoning over these data. Because certain high-level concepts in the ERP domain are illdefined, we have developed methods to support coordinated updates to each of these three components. This approach consists of “top-down” (knowledge-driven) design and implementation, followed by “bottom-up” (data-driven) validation and refinement. Our goal is to build an ERP ontology that is logically valid, empirically sound, robust in application, and transparent to users. This ontology will be used to support sharing and meta-analysis of EEG and MEG data collected within our Neural Electromagnetic Ontologies (NEMO) project.