Advances in Studying Brain Morphology: The Benefits of Open-Access Data

• Published in: Frontiers in human neuroscience Vol. 11; p. 405
• Main Author: Madan, Christopher R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 04-08-2017; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: Age; Aging; Alzheimer's disease; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Brain research; Cognitive ability; Consortia; Cortex; cortical structure; cortical thickness; Datasets; Dementia; gyrification; Initiatives; Medical imaging; Memory; Morphology; Neuroimaging; Neuroscience; Open access; Quality control; Schizophrenia; structural MRI; Studies; cortical structure; structural MRI; aging; gyrification; cortical thickness; neuroimaging
• ISSN: 1662-5161; 1662-5161
• DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00405

[...]recently, neuroimaging data for a research study needed to be collected within one's own lab. The utility of open-access brain morphology data is numerous, ranging from observing novel patterns of age-related differences in subcortical structures to the development of more robust cortical parcellation atlases, with these advances being translatable to improved methods for characterizing clinical disorders (see Figure 1 for an illustration). [...]structural MRIs are generally more robust than functional MRIs, relative to potential artifacts and in being not task-dependent, resulting in large potential yields. Nonetheless, differences in brain morphology can, however, correspond to a myriad of inter-individual differences, including personality traits (Bjørnebekk et al., 2013; Holmes et al., 2016; Riccelli et al., 2017), genetic risk factors (Mormino et al., 2014; Strike et al., 2015; Chang et al., 2016), and age-related differences (Sowell et al., 2003; Allen et al., 2005; Fjell et al., 2009; Walhovd et al., 2011; Hogstrom et al., 2013; McKay et al., 2014; Madan and Kensinger, 2016; Cao et al., 2017). A population that is even harder to recruit from, at least for those without the relevant collaborators, is patient populations. [...]when patients are being recruited for a study, additional skills are necessary to appropriately characterize the patient's health and cognitive state–making the sharing of this data particularly valuable for further research, albeit with additional considerations related to the sharing of patient data (see Brakewood and Poldrack, 2013).