Tutorials, Databases, and More

Investigators seeking to work on an imaging project or to generate preliminary data for a grant have several resources available to them within and outside of the VA Imaging Center:

  1. There are some investigators that have data available for small collaborative projects. If you are an investigator in the Center that has such data, please let us know and we can list you here so you can be contacted by interested parties about this type of collaboration.
  2. There are several large, publicly available datasets for structural and functional neuroimaging, in control and patient populations. These data are optimal for processing through various data processing tools including Freesurfer for structural analysis (surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu), and the FSL tool MELODIC for functional analysis (http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/melodic/index.html).

Please send any information to add to this list to vabostonimaging@gmail.com.

OASIS

The Open Access Series of Imaging Studies (OASIS) is a project aimed at making MRI data sets of the brain freely available to the scientific community. By compiling and freely distributing MRI data sets, we hope to facilitate future discoveries in basic and clinical neuroscience. OASIS is made available by the Washington University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Dr. Randy Buckner at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at Harvard University, the Neuroinformatics Research Group (NRG) at Washington University School of Medicine, and the Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN):

http://www.oasis-brains.org/

ADNI

The overall goal of this huge project is to define the rate of progress of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, to develop improved methods for clinical trials in this area, and to provide a large database that will improve design of treatment trials. We expect that this project will provide information and methods which will help lead to effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, leading to effective prevention.

http://www.adni-info.org/

Brain Resource International Database (BRID)

A large body of data, including genomic information, electrical brain and body function measures, structural and functional MRI, cognitive and medical history data. These data are from healthy people and those experiencing a range of different brain-related illnesses. Processed data are provided freely for research and for scientific publication, thereby maximizing and sharing the benefits.

http://www.brainresource.com/pharma_trials/index.php?id=214

1000 Functional Connectomes Project

This project spans multiple international neuroimaging centers and aims at making resting state fMRI data freely available for download. There are currently 33 contributing centers and over 1000 fMRI scans.

http://www.nitrc.org/projects/fcon_1000/

FSL, FreeSurfer, AFNI, and Bash Scripting Training Materials

Those interested in acquiring or perfecting their knowledge of the FreeSurfer, FSL, and AFNI can now access the training materials on any of the workstations in the neuroimaging processing lab located in C11-37. The lecture slides, practicals, and the data files are located in the VA_Imaging/Projects/Neuroimaging_Training directory. Besides the FreeSurfer, FSL, and AFNI training course materials you can also access a book on bash scripting, which can be a very helpful resource for individuals new to neuroimaging.