SHAREbrain: An interactive, integrative, and modular approach to standardise advanced functional neurophysiology data and metadata for sharing and reuse via the EBRAINS Research Infrastructure

A key goal underlying the FAIR principles is to enhance reusability of research data. Yet in the field of animal neurophysiology this is challenging due to a high degree of heterogeneity and complexity in the experimental instruments, techniques and analytic tools used. Consequently, this diversity leads to different approaches to data organisation, a wide range of file formats and countless variations of lab-specific metadata that can be difficult to interpret, ultimately preventing efficient data reuse. Here we propose a workflow for standardising and sharing datasets from different electrophysiological and 2-photon imaging experiments via the EBRAINS Research Infrastructure. The SHAREbrain workflow builds on an interactive data management platform (NANSEN), which features integrated solutions for registering metadata using specifications and terminologies from openMINDS, exporting data to the Neurodata Without Borders (NWB) file format and organising data according to the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) standard. With NANSEN, users can interactively build a model for how their dataset is organised on the file system and make custom rules and scripts for how data should be read from specific files on a file-by-file basis. With intuitive GUIs for entering metadata and exporting data to NWB, the workflow enables a streamlined and modular approach to standardising heterogeneous datasets. Thus, rather than standardising instrumentations and workflows across laboratories, the aim is to offer modular standardisation tools that can be tailored to meet lab-specific needs. In summary, the SHAREbrain workflow lowers the threshold for standardising datasets and facilitates reuse of datasets, while preserving lab-specific data practices.