Overview
The BRAIN Initiative® has made significant investments in a program to build the infrastructure that is needed to effectively share and interpret data. The goal of the program is to:
- Build data science or informatics infrastructure that is useful to the research community;
- Make data and tools openly available to the research community;
- Help to enhance FAIR principles of data sharing and improve the rigor and reproducibility of BRAIN Initiative research; and
- Enable or facilitate secondary analysis or data mining of BRAIN Initiative datasets.
Currently, the informatics program consists of three components: a) data archives; b) data standards; and c) software tools for data integration and analysis. Rather than building an all-encompassing infrastructure, the program is creating the infrastructure for individual scientific areas, such as:
- Integrated approaches to understanding circuit function in the nervous system;
- Invasive devices for recording and modulation in the human central nervous system;
- Non-invasive neuromodulation;
- Next generation imaging;
- Integrated approaches to cell census or atlas of the brain.
Data archiving, promoting data standards, and efforts around integration and analysis all require interaction and interoperability. The data archives provide access and software tools, which enables users to analyze the archived data on a cloud environment without downloading the data to local machines. Additionally, the data archives adopt and update data standards to re-enforce data sharing and facilitate continued rigor and reproducibility for experiments and analysis. For detailed information on publicly available datasets and how to access them, please see the individual archive websites linked below.
BRAIN Initiative Data Archives
- Neuroscience Multi-Omic Data Archive (NeMO) for multi-omics data
- Brain Imaging Library (BIL) for confocal microscopy brain imaging data
- Data Archive for the Brain Initiative (DABI) for invasive device data
- OpenNeuro for magnetic resonance imaging and other neuroimaging data
- OpenNeuroPet for positron emission tomography data
- Block and Object Storage Service & Database (BossDB) for electron microscopy and x-ray microtomography data
- Distributed Archives for Neurophysiology Data Integration (DANDI) for cellular neurophysiology data
- Neuroelectromagnetic Data Archive and Tools Resource (NEMAR) for human EEG and MEG data
Current Funding Opportunities
- RFA-MH-20-600: Data Archives for the BRAIN Initiative (R24 Clinical Trial Optional)
- RFA-MH-22-220: Integration and Analysis of BRAIN Initiative Data (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
- RFA-MH-22-145: Standards to Define Experiments Related to the BRAIN Initiative (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
Contact
Ming Zhan, Ph.D.
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Telephone: 301-827-3678
Email: ming.zhan@nih.gov