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Neurodatabase.org: networking the microelectrode

Nature Neuroscience volume 7, pages 486–487 (2004)Cite this article

Electrophysiological signals report activity of single neurons, neuronal arrays and networks. Our understanding of neural coding, information transmission and brain processes would be aided if such data could be made available for further analyses that could integrate and compare findings from individual laboratories, and test multiple hypotheses. Such analyses require access to actual sets of digitized data themselves, rather than to printed views of the data through static journal figures1. However, data sharing of this sort requires agreement on techniques, formats and ownership, as well as methods for classification and selection.

The Laboratory of Neuroinformatics, supported by the Human Brain Project of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), has developed neurodatabase.org—a freely accessible database to aid sharing of neurophysiological data. This resource acquires, organizes, annotates, archives, delivers and displays single- and multi-unit neuronal data from mammalian cerebral cortex1. The database is presently populated with somatosensory recordings, with planned expansion to data from other regions. It is available to any user with a contemporary Java-enabled networked computer.

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Figure 1: Neurodatabase.org tools for accessing, selecting and viewing neurophysiology data and descriptive metadata.

References

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Acknowledgements

This Human Brain Project/Neuroinformatics research is supported by NIMH and NINDS via MH57153, and NIMH, NINDS, NIA, NIBIB and NSF via MH68012, with additional support from MH60538. I thank E.P. Gardner for comments on an earlier version.

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  1. Department of Physiology, Laboratory of Neuroinformatics, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, 10021, New York, USA

    Daniel Gardner

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Gardner, D. Neurodatabase.org: networking the microelectrode. Nat Neurosci 7, 486–487 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0504-486

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