NeurodataWithoutBorders Profile picture
A data standard for neurophysiology data that aims to promote collaboration and data reuse across systems neuroscience

Oct 5, 2022, 11 tweets

Neurophysiology data is so expensive and valuable. Let’s not waste it! Let's share it and reuse it!

Our @eLife paper (elifesciences.org/articles/78362) outlines the NWB software ecosystem for standardizing, analyzing, and sharing neurophysiology data #tweeprint 1/11

Neurophysiology experiments span many species, tasks, and recording modalities. Labs are also diverse in the analysis tools and programming languages they use. This diversity has for a long time resulted in silos in the field. 2/11

Neurophysiology data collected for one purpose is often useful to answer other questions, but sharing data is difficult and tedious- data formats are diverse and complex, and essential metadata may be missing. We need a way to bridge the gap between groups. 3/11

Neurodata Without Borders (NWB) is a data standard for neurophysiology that packages data with the metadata necessary for reanalysis. NWB can store intra- and extracellular electrophysiology, optical physiology, complex behavior, and more! 4/11

NWB can store multiple modalities in a single file and can store both raw data (like voltage traces and image stacks) and the results of preprocessing (like spike sorting and image segmentation). 5/11

You can read and write NWB files using Python (pynwb.readthedocs.io) or MATLAB (github.com/NeurodataWitho…). Our NeuroConv (neuroconv.readthedocs.io) library can automatically convert data from most popular formats to NWB. 6/11

Neuroscience techniques are always evolving, so we need a standard that can evolve with them. NWB extensions allow you to build formal enhancements to the standard to fit your specific needs. You can then share these extensions in the NDX Catalog nwb-extensions.github.io 7/11

Share NWB data on the @DANDIarchive, which validates and parses metadata from NWB. DANDI can store TB-scale datasets for FREE! Browse the 100+ NWB datasets - over 47 TB - on dandiarchive.org and use DANDI's @ProjectJupyter Hub to interact with the data. 8/11

Accelerate your science with the large and growing library of analysis tools that support NWB: #CaImAn #suite2p @spikeinterface @DeepLabCut @thepynapple @DataJointNeuro #NWBExplorer sleap.ai cellexplorer.org #neo and more!

nwb-overview.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tool… 9/11

This is an important milestone for a community-driven effort spanning 8 years. We thank everyone involved, including the developers, orgs like @INCForg, and users around the world. 10/11

Also thanks to our exec board: Kris Bouchard, @bingbrunton, @eabuffalo, @anne_churchland, Loren Frank, @satra_, @KepecsLab, Mala Murthy, Huib Mansvelder, @UeliRutishauser & our funders: @KavliFoundation, @SCglobalbrain, @HHMIJanelia, @WeillNeurohub, @NIH #BRAINInitiative 11/11

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