CRCNS: NeuroBridge: Connecting Big Data for Reproducible Clinical Neuroscience

In replication, mega analysis, and meta-analysis that are critical to the advancement of neuroimaging research, a critical question is how to harness already-collected data for replication purposes efficiently and rigorously. Much of the present efforts on reproducibility science assumes that appropriate datasets are available. While many different neuroimaging databases exist, they have different languages, formats, and usually do not communicate with each other. Moreover, neuroimaging data are collected in hundreds of laboratories each year, forming the “long tail of science” data. Much of this data are described in journal publications but remain underutilized. A critical gap therefore exists in getting enough data of the right kind to the scientist. We propose the NeuroBridge, a data sharing infrastructure that combines innovative techniques and established technologies in a platform that will greatly enhance the reuse of critical neuroscience data sets.