AUTHOR=Vaccarino Anthony L. , Dharsee Moyez , Strother Stephen , Aldridge Don , Arnott Stephen R. , Behan Brendan , Dafnas Costas , Dong Fan , Edgecombe Kenneth , El-Badrawi Rachad , El-Emam Khaled , Gee Tom , Evans Susan G. , Javadi Mojib , Jeanson Francis , Lefaivre Shannon , Lutz Kristen , MacPhee F. Chris , Mikkelsen Jordan , Mikkelsen Tom , Mirotchnick Nicholas , Schmah Tanya , Studzinski Christa M. , Stuss Donald T. , Theriault Elizabeth , Evans Kenneth R. TITLE=Brain-CODE: A Secure Neuroinformatics Platform for Management, Federation, Sharing and Analysis of Multi-Dimensional Neuroscience Data JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroinformatics VOLUME=12 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroinformatics/articles/10.3389/fninf.2018.00028 DOI=10.3389/fninf.2018.00028 ISSN=1662-5196 ABSTRACT=

Historically, research databases have existed in isolation with no practical avenue for sharing or pooling medical data into high dimensional datasets that can be efficiently compared across databases. To address this challenge, the Ontario Brain Institute’s “Brain-CODE” is a large-scale neuroinformatics platform designed to support the collection, storage, federation, sharing and analysis of different data types across several brain disorders, as a means to understand common underlying causes of brain dysfunction and develop novel approaches to treatment. By providing researchers access to aggregated datasets that they otherwise could not obtain independently, Brain-CODE incentivizes data sharing and collaboration and facilitates analyses both within and across disorders and across a wide array of data types, including clinical, neuroimaging and molecular. The Brain-CODE system architecture provides the technical capabilities to support (1) consolidated data management to securely capture, monitor and curate data, (2) privacy and security best-practices, and (3) interoperable and extensible systems that support harmonization, integration, and query across diverse data modalities and linkages to external data sources. Brain-CODE currently supports collaborative research networks focused on various brain conditions, including neurodevelopmental disorders, cerebral palsy, neurodegenerative diseases, epilepsy and mood disorders. These programs are generating large volumes of data that are integrated within Brain-CODE to support scientific inquiry and analytics across multiple brain disorders and modalities. By providing access to very large datasets on patients with different brain disorders and enabling linkages to provincial, national and international databases, Brain-CODE will help to generate new hypotheses about the biological bases of brain disorders, and ultimately promote new discoveries to improve patient care.