The European research infrastructure
Over the last 10 years, Norwegian researchers have helped to develop new data-sharing services, combined with a three-dimensional, digital brain atlas.
By developing an advanced, digital infrastructure for brain research,
The brain atlas is like a mapping solution for the brain
An important contribution to the infrastructure from the Neural Systems research group at the
This can be compared with map solutions on the internet which provide different kinds of information about a particular location by means of map coordinates, explains professor Trygve Leergaard. Together with Bjalie, he is co-leader of the Neural Systems research group and contributes to the development of the brain atlas used by
Too little data-sharing so far
Diseases affecting the brain represent a large cost to the health system and to society. The brain is the most complicated structure we know of. Although over 100 years of research carried out by neural scientists has revealed a great deal about the structure and function of the brain, we still know too little about how the brain functions as we grow up, age or fall ill and effective treatments are still lacking to a large degree, says Leergaard.
In order to understand and model the brain, available data must be correlated and up until now, this has been difficult because research methods, measurements and results have differed and been unavailable for other scientists to use. It is precisely correlations of this kind that
There has been a lack of willingness and opportunity to share data from research projects, says Leergaard.
Research findings are traditionally published in scientific articles that only reveal a small amount of information, while the huge amounts of data and raw data that formed the basis of the article often remain inaccessible. Most kinds of brain research data have therefore been under-utilised and there is a great potential for re-using data for the purpose of analysis and solving other research questions, or to test new methods of analysis.
This problem is recognised by
The FAIR principles must be followed
During recent years, there has been growing acceptance for the so-called FAIR principles which state that research data must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable.
As early as in 2018, while working on her doctoral thesis,
'If research data are to be relevant and valuable over and above answering a specific question in a given article, there is clearly a need to improve and standardise the way research is reported. We want our findings to contribute towards drawing attention to this need.'
The value of data will be greatly increased
Descriptions are often lacking that could enable other scientists to find and re-use research data, says
Valuable, stored data lose their value if there is no information to explain the findings or the methods used to generate them. The aim of a research project is usually to publish the results in a scientific article, so it has not been normal practice to store results and data so that they can be re-used. Furthermore, scientists often keep to their own methods, which are difficult for others to understand, adds Leergaard.
Since both the universities, the
Many specialists have contributed to
The work behind the development of
The new infrastructure is now under further development through the project
Scientists expect great savings
It is often said that data is 'the new gold' and Leergaard believes that there are strong indications that open access to big data will open the door to new types of large-scale analyses, not least through the use of artificial intelligence:
We expect that
An important objective for the
We are currently taking active steps to introduce
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