Data Standards¶
DANDI requires uploaded data to adhere to community data standards. These standards help data curators package all the necessary metadata and provide a uniform structure so that data can be more easily understood and reused by future users. DANDI also leverages these standards to provide features like data validation and automatic metadata extraction and search. DANDI currently supports two data standards:
- For cellular neurophysiology, such as electrophysiology and optical physiology, use Neurodata Without Borders (NWB)
- For neuroimaging data, such as MRI, use Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS)
For microscopy data from immunostaining, we are using the BIDS extension for microscopy.
To share data on DANDI, you will first need to convert your data to an appropriate standard. If you would like help determining which standard is most appropriate for your data, do not hesitate to reach out using the dandi helpdesk and we would be happy to assist.
Neurodata Without Borders (NWB)¶
NWB is a data standard for neurophysiology, providing neuroscientists with a common standard to share, archive, use, and build analysis tools for neurophysiology data. NWB is designed to store a variety of neurophysiology data, including data from intracellular and extracellular electrophysiology experiments, data from optical physiology experiments, and tracking and stimulus data. The NWB team supports APIs in Python (PyNWB) and MATLAB (MatNWB), with tutorials for writing data broken down by experiment type. See the NWB Tutorials page for more details. Also see the NWB Conversion Tools user guide for converting data for automated conversions from several popular proprietary data formats. The best way to get help from the NWB community is through the NWB user Slack channel.
Brain Imaging Data Format (BIDS)¶
BIDS is a way to organize and describe neuroimaging and behavioral data. See the Getting Started page for instructions for how to convert your neuroimaging data to BIDS.
For microscopy and associated MR data, use the BIDS extension for microscopy.