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Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3, 314–318 (1 April 2002) | doi:10.1038/nrn788

Databasing fMRI studies |[mdash]| towards a 'discovery science' of brain function

John D. Van Horn & Michael S. Gazzaniga

Enormous progress has been made over the past decade in the development of neuroimaging technology to study in vivo brain function. But as was once the case in genomics, much of the raw functional imaging data that are collected and described in the literature have not been made available to other researchers. The fMRI Data Center aims to archive raw functional imaging data from peer-reviewed publications, making it freely available to researchers from all disciplines to confirm conclusions, test new methods and generate new hypotheses. This bold project hopes to open up new vistas of understanding of complex cognitive processes and usher in the study of 'neuronomics'.