Computational neuroanatomy and co-expression of genes in the adult mouse brain, analysis tools for the Allen Brain Atlas

Abstract

We review quantitative methods and software developed to analyze genome-scale, brain-wide spatially-mapped gene-expression data. We expose new methods based on the underlying high-dimensional geometry of voxel space and gene space, and on simulations of the distribution of co-expression networks of a given size. We apply them to the Allen Atlas of the adult mouse brain, and to the coexpression network of a set of genes related to nicotine addiction retrieved from the NicSNP database. The computational methods are implemented in BrainGeneExpressionAnalysis (BGEA), a Matlab toolbox available for download.