Data-sharing

Recent articles

Illustration of a funnel taking abstract shapes in at the top and spouting an organized flow of shapes out at the bottom.

To keep or not to keep: Neurophysiology’s data dilemma

An exponential growth in data size presents neuroscientists with a significant challenge: Should we be keeping all raw data or focusing on processed datasets? I asked experimentalists and theorists for their thoughts.

By Nima Dehghani
25 November 2024 | 5 min read
Illustration of three figures standing in front of a grid of dots and a world map.

The S-index Challenge: Develop a metric to quantify data-sharing success

The NIH-sponsored effort aims to help incentivize scientists to share data. But many barriers to the widespread adoption of useful data-sharing remain.

By Loren Frank
8 October 2024 | 6 min listen
Illustration of three figures cleaning data with brooms and brushes.

A README for open neuroscience

Making data (and code) useful for yourself automatically makes it useful for others.

By Samuel Gershman
9 September 2024 | 5 min read
Illustration of a blue face with sunglasses.

Neuroscience needs a career path for software engineers

Few institutions have mechanisms for the type of long-term positions that would best benefit the science.

By Gaëlle Chapuis, Olivier Winter
19 August 2024 | 7 min listen
Illustration of a hand holding a pen reaching towards a blank sheet of paper.

Neuroimaging researchers pen statement protesting UK Biobank data-access changes

The signatories asked the organization to grant all imaging researchers a data-download exemption until the cloud platform can accommodate their processing needs.

By Calli McMurray
30 July 2024 | 4 min read
A digitally distorted image of a file folder against a blue gradient background.

Data access changes to UK Biobank stir unease in neuroscientists

“I feel a little bit in limbo,” says neuroscientist Stephanie Noble, who has paused a study using Biobank data after the repository shifted from a data download to a cloud-only access model.

By Calli McMurray
16 July 2024 | 7 min read
Illustration of a scientist attempting to wrangle many forms of data at once: a pile of charts and graphs threatens to knock them off of their feet as they attempt to prop it up.

Neuroscience graduate students deserve comprehensive data-literacy education

Despite growing requirements around how to handle and share data, formal training is lacking.

By Letisha R. Wyatt
15 July 2024 | 6 min read
Image of neural activity in a mouse as seen through the Miniscope.

Designing an open-source microscope

Funding for the development of open-source tools is on the rise, but support for their maintenance and dissemination, both crucial for their meaningful uptake, remains a major challenge.

By Daniel Aharoni
17 June 2024 | 6 min read
A playful cellular map features top-down and bottom-up views of the human brain arranged side-by-side as if they were the earth’s two hemispheres in an old-fashioned map of the world. The brains are colored to suggest land masses and bodies of water.

Knowledge graphs can help make sense of the flood of cell-type data

These tools, widely used in the technology industry, could provide a foundation for the study of brain circuits.

By Michael Hawrylycz
28 May 2024 | 7 min read
An illustration of a figure looking at a flow chart

Neuroscience needs a research-video archive

Video data are enormously useful and growing rapidly, but the field lacks a searchable, shareable way to store them.

By Robert Froemke
6 May 2024 | 6 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Colorful illustration of a latticework of proteins.

Cracking the code of the extracellular matrix

Despite evidence for a role in plasticity and other crucial functions, many neuroscientists still view these proteins as “brain goop.” The field needs technical advances and a shift in scientific thinking to move beyond this outdated perspective.

By Anna Victoria Molofsky
17 January 2025 | 5 min read
A repeated DNA strand extends farther from the left side of the image with each iteration.

Huntington’s disease gene variants past a certain size poison select cells

The findings—providing “the next step in the whole pathway”—help explain the disease’s late onset and offer hope that it has an extended therapeutic window.

By Angie Voyles Askham
16 January 2025 | 6 min read
Research image highlighting different brain regions.

X marks the spot in search for autism variants

Genetic variants on the X chromosome, including those in the gene DDX53, contribute to autism’s gender imbalance, two new studies suggest.

By Holly Barker
16 January 2025 | 6 min read