Streamline High-Quality Neuroimaging Research at Southampton
DocumentationNote: This content was last updated on 19 October 2021. Currently, there are discussions about strategic alignment of SOTNIR under a unified framework of Southampton imaging research.
SOTNIR stands for Southampton Neuroimaging Repository.
The purpose of establishing SOTNIR is to make it easier to carry out high-quality neuroimaging research at Southampton. This is an initiative between UoS Faculty of Medicine and UHS Imaging Physics Group, but it is important to note that the ever-growing Southampton neuroimaging community spans multiple faculties and disciplines across the UoS and the UHS, therefore, having an infrastructure that allows the storage, management, and sharing of neuroimaging data, software, and protocols represents a genuine priority. SOTNIR aims to be a collaborative platform to enable this, where on-going communications are taking place between scientists and engineers who work in academic or clinical settings. In addition, SOTNIR advocates sharing neuroimage processing software that are well developed, tested, and documented, so that the risks related to clinical applications are well managed, and people coming from different backgrounds know how to use them.
The benefit of SOTNIR is multi-folds. Locally, researchers can increase the uptake of projects for publication and funding applications, students can access standardized workflows to carry out short-term projects and fulfill curriculum. Globally, SOTNIR fosters positive interactions with external collaborators and the broader scientific community, enabling re-analysis and meta-analysis of the data in different contexts1, thus presenting a collective effort towards transparent and reproducible science. Many neuroimaging repositories have been made publicly available2–8, covering a wide spectrum of imaging modality, population, and study design. Therefore, establishing SOTNIR is not innovative, but fundamental, for enabling Southampton neuroimaging research to continue expanding, a commitment that the UoS and the UHS has made significant investment.
An illustrative diagram of SOTNIR is provided below (Figure 1):
In brief, SOTNIR consists of two components: one that hosts data, and the other that hosts software and protocols:
Individuals that interact with SOTNIR can be grouped into four types:
There are two routes that individuals may choose from to interact with SOTNIR:
A phased implementation of SOTNIR is illustrated below (Figure 2):
Data to be archived at XNAT must first undergo in-house anonymization process to protect sensitive information of study participants. Data sharing needs to be in compliance with General Data Protection Regulation, this is currently a work in progress by the UHS Medical Device Software Group (MDSG). Access to XNAT is restricted to users authorized by specific study's investigators.
The UHS MDSG has recognized expertise in Quality Management System. MDSG can support the development of neuroimage processing software and pipelines for clinical applications, including those research tools that may be translated to clinical settings. Documentation of software and pipelines can be hosted at Read the Docs (https://readthedocs.org/), a platform that has a user-friendly interface and integrates well with GitHub.
To be added.