On Aug. 4, 2014, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, California Institute of Technology, New York University School of Medicine, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) are collaborating on a project aimed at making databases about the brain more useable and accessible for neuroscientists – a step seen as critical to accelerating the pace of discoveries about the brain in health and disease. With funding from GE, The Kavli Foundation, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the HHMI, and the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF), the year-long project will focus on standardizing a subset of neuroscience data, making this research simpler for scientists to share. 

This is the first collaboration launched by “Neurodata Without Borders,” a broader initiative with the goal of standardizing neuroscience data on an international scale, making it more easily sharable by researchers worldwide.  This first project is called “Neurodata Without Borders: Neurophysiology.”

Unlike image file formats such as jpeg or tiff, that store digital information when we take a photo with our mobile phones and allow us to share that photo with anyone with a computer, no such data standard exists in neuroscience. However, developing such a standard, or unified data format, would enhance the ability of brain researchers worldwide to share and combine their research results. This would not only drive progress in neuroscience but also encourage the validation of existing results and create vital new collaborations with other fields.