Neuroscience

This pilot will interlink the EBRAINS Knowledge Graph with the SciLake service. It will deliver

1. Connections of the EBRAINS KG data entries to the relevant scientific articles and level of rigour for available data sets based on FAIRness and code sharing, ensuring benefits for neuroscience researchers using the EBRAINS data services and interoperable services,
2. Capacity for informed prioritization of time and efforts invested by EBRAINS data curation, in particular with regard to depth of curation, based on jointly analysing OpenAIRE KG and the EBRAINS KG to identify entries receiving the highest interest in the community, and
3. Capacity for identifying the areas of largest interest in the research community, and gaps in data and knowledge, based on jointly analysing OpenAIRE KG and the EBRAINS KG to identify the distribution of number of publications and number of shared data sets across areas of investigation. 

Background

Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary field that aims to understand the fundamental properties of cells, circuits, and overall organization of the brain and other parts of the nervous system (basic neuroscience), the changes occurring in disease, and how diseases can be prevented and cured (clinical neuroscience, brain medicine). Neuroscience research addresses diseases like dementia, mental health conditions, drug abuse, etc. It is also closely coupled to brain-inspired and brain-derived sciences, building on translation of the principles of brain function to technology development.

Domain-specific data/metadata

Neuroscience data are heterogeneous, collected at multiple spatial and temporal scales using a broad range of methods, resulting in a plethora of procedures and formats and accompanying challenges with reproducibility and replicability of findings. Data are shared through domain specific repositories (e.g., EBRAINS, DANDI, SPARC, CONP, BRAIN/MINDS, INCF Knowledge Space, SciCrunch, brain-map.org, openNeuro, Human Connectome Project, CBRAIN) or general data sharing repositories (e.g., Zenodo, figshare, Data Dryad). Motivated by the general need for metadata harmonization and interoperability in the field, the Human Brain Project initiated the development of openMINDS, an open metadata initiative gathering a set of metadata models describing heterogeneous neuroscience data. openMINDS has been adopted by the EBRAINS data services, which includes a curation service targeting data producers, a scientific knowledge graph (EBRAINS KG) with an API and a GUI for search and navigation of metadata, and access to DOI citable data with data descriptors and licenses for data use. EBRAINS is the new digital research infrastructure for brain and brain-inspired sciences, recently included in the ESFRI roadmap. The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) and the International Brain Initiative (IBI), working closely with HBP and EBRAINS, are currently exploring opportunities for alignment among standards used by repositories of the main brain initiatives globally (e.g., in the US and Japan) and increased uptake of openMINDS. The field of neuroscience is thus gradually converging on a higher degree of data interoperability.

Current needs & challenges

While interlinking of some of the major neuroscience research data set oriented repositories are on the horizon, as outlined above, interlinking to the publication-oriented resources such as the OpenAIRE Research Graph is missing. Integration/federation of information from diverse resources is therefore a considerable challenge, resulting in reduced opportunities for elucidatinge major trends in areas of research, tracking progress, and reaching understanding. 

Expected Outcomes

• Workflows employing the services of SciLake for neuroscience data, including connections of the EBRAINS KG data entries to the relevant scientific articles and level of rigour for available data sets based on FAIRness and code sharing, ensuring benefits for neuroscience researchers using the EBRAINS data services and interoperable services from the main brain initiatives globally.
• Capacity for informed prioritization of time and efforts invested by EBRAINS data curation, in particular regarding depth of curation, based on the exploitation of SciLake’s impact analysis and reproducibility analysis services to jointly analyse OpenAIRE KG and the EBRAINS KG to identify entries receiving the highest interest in the community.
• Capacity for identifying the areas of largest interest in the research community, and gaps in data and knowledge, based on the exploitation of SciLake’s impact analysis and reproducibility analysis services to jointly analyse OpenAIRE KG and the EBRAINS KG to identify the distribution of number of publications and number of shared data sets across areas of investigation.