The Brain Archive

motivation

Advancements in the field of microscopy and imaging have pushed the boundaries of what was once thought possible in many fields of research. The amount of data generated by these advancements has increased to a point where conventional systems are unable to manage it. To address this issue, we have established the Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy Brain Data Archive. The Archive encompasses the deposition of confocal fluorescence microscopy datasets, the integration of datasets into a searchable web-accessible system, the redistribution of datasets, and a computational enclave to allow researchers to process datasets in-place and share restricted and pre-release datasets.

The Archive is focused on confocal microscopy data. The Archive will contain whole brain volumetric images of mouse, rat, and other mammals, targeted experiments in the brain highlighting connectivity between cells, spatial transcriptomic data, and metadata describing essential information about the experiments.

archive data

Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus infected mouse brain (red). Green introduced into the vasculature. 96 hours post infection.

The Archive will accept data contributions from researchers. Data submission pipelines are currently being developed and the Archive expects to receive data from selected users in 2018. The Archive will provide help desk support to data submitters including networking and data transfer support. Contributors may select an appropriate optional embargo to allow data submission prior to publication.

Funding: The Archive is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health of the Nationals Institutes of Health under award number R24MH114793. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Acknowledgment: Watson AM, et al. (2017) Ribbon scanning confocal for high-speed high-resolution volume imaging of brain. PLOS ONE 12(7): e0180486.