Sharing brain mapping statistical results with the neuroimaging data model

Key findings

NIDM-Results is a machine-readable specification that captures fMRI mass-univariate analyses and key summary images at a level consistent with best practices, with SPM and FSL exporters and NeuroVault import support — enabling platform-independent sharing of neuroimaging statistical results.

Abstract

Source: pubmed

Only a tiny fraction of the data and metadata produced by an fMRI study is finally conveyed to the community. This lack of transparency not only hinders the reproducibility of neuroimaging results but also impairs future meta-analyses. In this work we introduce NIDM-Results, a format specification providing a machine-readable description of neuroimaging statistical results along with key image data summarising the experiment. NIDM-Results provides a unified representation of mass univariate analyses including a level of detail consistent with available best practices. This standardized representation allows authors to relay methods and results in a platform-independent regularized format that is not tied to a particular neuroimaging software package. Tools are available to export NIDM-Result graphs and associated files from the widely used SPM and FSL software packages, and the NeuroVault repository can import NIDM-Results archives. The specification is publically available at: http://nidm.nidash.org/specs/nidm-results.html.

Topics

open-data-standards
reproducibility-tooling

Lab authors

Satrajit S Ghosh