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BEHANDLING-God og treffsikker diagnostikk, behandling og rehabilitering

The Norwegian Node of the International Neuroinformatic Coordinating Facility

Alternative title: Nasjonal node i nevroinformatikk - INCF

Awarded: NOK 5.0 mill.

Neuroscience - integrated with other research fields - has seen an explosion in the number of large, multidisciplinary, and heterogeneous data. Storing and analyzing such data efficiently represent a considerable challenge. Understanding the structure and function of the nervous system in health and disease requires the use of new approaches for making efficient sharing and use of the wealth of the data produced. Neuroinformatics contributes to developing and implementing such solutions, focusing on advanced and seamless integration of data. The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) promotes global neuroinformatics through a network of national nodes with the objective of advancing international awareness of the field, advancing data re-use and reproducibility through development of standards, best practices and infrastructure developments, and by catalyzing community-driven collaborative brain research projects. The Norwegian node has contributed to establishing standards for neuroscience data. Results include recommendations for best practices on the reporting of anatomical location of data from the brain and on the use of brain atlases, and the release of software for anchoring of neuroanatomical image data to standardized 3-D atlases. The node has also developed and maintained tools for simulation of brain signals, taken up by many research projects. The node has implemented a pilot project on the use of brain atlases as VR educational tools and migrated the tool to an AR (augmented reality) platform. The node web page, www.incf.no, provides access to Neuroinformatics tools, resources, and services for researchers in Norway, in synergy with the European infrastructure EBRAINS (ebrains.eu). The following areas are covered: 1) general neuroscience data sharing. 2) digital brain atlases, 3) web application for organizing and managing microscopic image data from the brain and anchoring of the images to reference atlases for analysis and spatial search, and 4) modeling of brain function. We have organized training courses in digital brain atlasing and standards for sharing of neuroscience data in collaboration with the Norwegian Research School in Neuroscience. New online courses for 2021 are in preparation. We have also developed teaching material for the neuroinformatics tool LFPy used for modelling electrical signals and used this teaching material at several research schools and conferences. The dementia disease xnat database hosted by TSD (Services for Sensitive Data) has become an asset for researchers in Norway as well as in extended network collaborations. This resource contains multimodal imaging datasets including follow-ups. It has been taken up by several universities and hospitals in Norway. Recent progress include strengthening of the competences and capacities for feature extraction with machine learning, including deep learning, as part of big data analyses.

The increased uptake of the neuroinformatics tools and services delivered by the node is a result of the dissemination and targeted outreach actions. It has resulted in outcomes covering primarily three areas: - Outcomes related to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) neuroscience. With EC co-funding (EBRAINS), a globally recognized service for data sharing / data publishing has been realized and brought to use in Norway. The brain atlases and related tools are closely linked to the FAIR principle by providing frameworks for making data comparable and interpretable across studies. - Outcomes related to training and education include expanded course content and resources types in the INCF TrainingSpace including links to discussion forums, tools, and repositories with open data/models. - Outcomes related to clinical neuroinformatics include re-use of clinical research data in different context and new opportunities for analysis with new tools and new data combinations. The above outcomes are expected to lead to substantial impact in moving neuroscience toward open science practices, following the FAIR principles. Such a development is critical for advancing knowledge about the brain, maximizing research investment and making brain research more sustainable. INCF overall, and the Norwegian node in our national context, is in a position to advance this critical change, being an organisation with scientific expertise from around the world and much experience in community coordination and outreach. INCF’s training and education has covered neuroscience courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. The combined impacts of this work has the potential to be transformative for research practices in neuroscience.

Neuroscience - integrated with many other research fields - has seen an explosion in the number of large and multidisciplinary datasets which provide a major challenge to store and analyse efficiently. Understanding the structure, function, and development of the nervous system in health and disease requires the use of new approaches for making efficient use of the wealth of data produced. Neuroinformatics contributes to developing and implementing such solutions, focusing on advanced and seamless integration of data. The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) promotes global neuroinformatics through a network of national nodes with the objective of advancing international awareness of the field, advance data re-use and reproducibility through development of standards, best practices and infrastructure developments, and by catalyzing community-driven collaborative brain research projects. The INCF Norwegian node has over the last years established tools and infrastructure for digital brain atlasing, sharing, re-use and integration of image data through the use of atlases, and advanced computational modeling. In the next phase, the Node will reach out to Norwegian research groups to increase the user base of the established infrastructure through a range of activities. The Node will establish 1) education and training in neuroinformatics in collaboration with the Norwegian Research School in Neuroscience, 2) collaborative research projects with a network of scientists in Norway, as a vehicle to increase uptake and further user-driven development of neuroinformatics tools and infrastructures, and 3) links between the existing Node infrastructures from the previous phase and new infrastructure for dementia disease research. The Node will use a range of approaches for dissemination and two way communication with researchers at all levels, through the web, workshops and events, and the active participation in the INCF Special Interest Groups.

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BEHANDLING-God og treffsikker diagnostikk, behandling og rehabilitering