DABI should be cited using the following references:
Duncan, D., Garner, R., Brinkerhoff, S., Walker, H. C., Pouratian, N., & Toga, A. W. (2023). Data archive for the BRAIN initiative (DABI). Scientific Data, 10(1), 83.
You may also wish to explore the following publication:
Subash, P., Gray, A., Boswell, M., Cohen, S. L., Garner, R., Salehi, S., ... & Duncan, D. (2023). A comparison of neuroelectrophysiology databases. Scientific Data, 10(1), 719.

If you use a dataset from DABI, please acknowledge the dataset by citing it, just as you would a publication, including the DOI. The DOI can be found on the project’s page on the DABI website. Additionally, please provide the funding information in the acknowledgments. If the dataset has a Data Use Agreement (DUA), please follow the citation requirements in the DUA.
Please include the following statement in the methods section of the manuscript:
Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Data Archive for the BRAIN Initiative (DABI) database (https://dabi.loni.usc.edu). DABI was launched in 2018, led by Principal Investigators Arthur W. Toga, PhD, Dominique Duncan, PhD, and Nader Pouratian, MD, PhD. The primary goal of DABI has been to advance research by creating a community resource data archive with appropriate standards and summary information that are broadly available and accessible to the research community.
For acknowledgments, in addition to providing the funding information of the dataset used, please state the following:
Data collection and sharing for this project was funded by the National Institutes of Health Grant R24MH114796.

DABI is a web-accessible data archive that captures, stores, and curates human invasive neuroelectrophysiology data from NIH Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative proposals.

These data are aggregated, organized, and disseminated to the research community to accelerate the pace of discovery in neurosciences.

The platform's functionalities include data deposition, data quality assessment, mapping of data attributes into a common schema, search, explore, select, download, and visualization interfaces, DABI-TOOL for analysis, and a comprehensive provider portal for investigators. Read more on our About page .

Email us at   dabi-support@loni.usc.edu   or join our Slack .

To take advantage of DABI’s features, start by creating an account .

To upload data to the DABI storage system, select one of the upload options on the upload page or connect a cloud account to DABI.

The provider controls page contains tools for accessing your project.

The search page lets you search and explore projects to see what data are available in DABI.

For more information, see the FAQ items related to these topics.

Yes, DABI accepts all projects that carry neurodata.

We are planning on announcing a workshop schedule soon. Join us on Slack to receive updated information.

We also provide 1:1 Zoom meetings to address questions and assist with data uploads. Please contact us at dabi-support@loni.usc.edu to set up a meeting. ), }, { question: "Can data stored on DABI be used for publication?", answer: ( DABI users agree to adhere to DABI's publication policy.

Data providers who choose to store their data under a centralized model transfer their data to be stored at the Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics.

Under the federated model, data providers keep their data stored locally. If a data user obtains permission to access the federated data, the home institution’s database securely communicates with DABI’s central server via cached memory, but the data are never written to the DABI disks.

Our data are backed up weekly to an offsite cloud for redundancy, and the metadata are backed up daily on a rolling two-week basis.

Please keep your registration email as a receipt confirming your established DABI account. If you have not received or cannot access the confirmation email, please let us know at dabi-support@loni.usc.edu .

On the project members page you can add and remove PIs and Administrators for your project. Please note that to add any new project member, they must have a DABI account.

Please contact us at dabi-support@loni.usc.edu to add or change any grant information for your project.

Please contact us at dabi-support@loni.usc.edu to add or change any grant information for your project.

You can apply for a new DABI project here . Applications are reviewed and processed within 1-2 business days.

If you have already created an account, you can apply to create a new project. When your project is accepted and created, you will automatically be affiliated with that project.

If you would like to affiliate your account with projects already in the DABI system, notify the Contact PI for that project to add you using the project members page.

When creating a project, you may enter all associated grant number numbers. DABI assigns a unique identifier to each project. You may also list all grant numbers in your project description.

Users can be affiliated with any number of projects.

The federated model can accommodate the data needs of any project, but it is particularly effective for large electrophysiology datasets that continuously collect data over long periods of time. In this instance, the data can be queried as they are collected without team members uploading large datasets repeatedly.

Subprojects can be created in an existing project to organize subsets of data from the main project into different subcomponents. Users can create any number of subprojects under a project. When a subproject is created, it can be given a title and description and have associated publications; these features are the same as those used for the main project.

Users specify which files from the main project should be included in the subproject and set sharing preferences for each subproject individually. This feature is most commonly used when the data owner is ready to share a subset of their data publicly or for publication or when a subset of data will be shared with external collaborators.

The anonymous reviewer link is a unique link that grants access to project data without requiring the user to have a DABI account. It uses token-based authorization where the token is provided in the URL. Therefore, data owners must be careful about who receives this link.

Data should be uploaded with a minimum frequency of every six months.

DABI accepts the following data:

- All neuroelectrophysiology data is accepted
- All imaging data
- Behavioral test scores
- Patient seizure diaries
- Wearable device data
- Code files
- Surgical photographs
- Diagrams
- Associated publications

You can find the complete information here .

We ask that the minimum metadata included will contain the subjects’ diagnosis, sex/gender, age, and ROIs. More information on metadata can be found here .

We are happy to provide guidelines, resources, and recommendations for your dataset conversions. Please email us at dabi-support@loni.usc.edu to set up a Zoom meeting so we can better assist you with your data needs.

As the providers have complete control over their data, they can decide to remove their datasets from DABI.

If you plan to remove your data, please email us at dabi-support@loni.usc.edu . We will assist you with removing your project and data from DABI servers.

We are happy to provide guidelines and resources and answer questions related to your Data Management and Sharing Plan. Please email us at dabi-support@loni.usc.edu to set up a Zoom meeting so we can assist your needs more effectively.

We do not have versioned datasets. Only the most recent version of your dataset is available on DABI.

Yes. We accept datasets that only carry imaging data.

Yes. We accept derived data when uploaded with the original dataset. Please refer to the information listed here .

Yes. We require that all data uploaded to DABI are deidentified and do not carry any PHI or PII.

We do not require that imaging data are defaced. If you would like to deface your data, we recommend using pydeface , an open-source tool to remove the facial structures from MRI images.

Yes, we accept code files when accompanied by the original dataset.

Yes, we ask that all data collected for the project are uploaded to DABI. Please note: JSON format is acceptable if you collect continuous data using the Summit RC+S system. For extensive datasets, consider our federated or cloud options for data storage.

DABI has no file size limit; however, the Web Uploader is limited to 50GB per file. Please use Aspera to upload files larger than 50GB.

Yes. DABI accepts data in BIDS or NWB standards and datasets organized “by subject” in any of the following formats: BrainVision, European Data Format, EEGLAB, BioSemi, Intan, BlackRock Neurosystems, and MATLAB. In some cases, we also allow datasets in JSON format.

Subject metadata and a dataset description file must accompany the data uploaded to DABI.

After upload, datasets will be checked for compliance with our requirements before becoming visible on DABI.

Please see all guidelines here .

DABI is committed to the security and persistence of data collected by BRAIN Initiative awardees. All data submitted to DABI will remain securely stored at the Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics.

No, due to privacy concerns, the archive does not accept video or voice data. We are considering adding additional features to accommodate our providers’ needs, including voice and video recording storage.

Currently, only Box is supported as a cloud source. Support for additional cloud sources will be provided in the future.

Some cloud service APIs require write access to the cloud account to download data from the account. DABI does not make changes to your cloud data in any way.

The primary way DABI uses your cloud data is by facilitating file downloads from the cloud account to the client’s machine. During the download process, data from the cloud are stored in DABI application memory or "cache" and transferred to the client's machine. Cloud data are never written to disk.

DABI does not mandate when the data should become public and leaves the decision up to the data providers.

Yes. You may add a DUA to a public dataset. A user must sign the DUA before downloading the dataset.

DABI’s DUA is available here . All users who request a DABI account are required to sign it.

Currently, data providers can leave a comment on the data request notification. If you would like to request more information, please use the comment option. You can also email the requester directly.

Yes. You can create a subproject on the Project Data page and specify the files you want to share. Users can request access to the subproject rather than the entire dataset, or the subproject can be set as Public.

We require the project and subjects’ metadata to be visible to the public. The users can also see the project description, PIs, and university affiliation.

When users request access to data stored in DABI, the owners of those data are the only ones who can grant or deny access. Data providers maintain complete control over their data at all times.
DABI provides a user-friendly interface for storing, managing, and sharing data. Data are never shared with or downloaded by users without the explicit consent of the project PI or an approved delegate.

Investigators and administrators affiliated with a project can download data from that project. Users not affiliated with the project can only download project data if the project is listed as public or the user has requested access and has explicitly been approved by an authorized project member.

If you have a DABI account, you may download public project data by searching for and selecing a project. For private project data you can request to download on the request data page .

Public project data can be downloaded by any DABI account holder without explicit approval by a project investigator or administrator. However, if you have provided DABI with a data use agreement (DUA), users will still have to agree to the terms before downloading the dataset, even if it is public.

Private project data cannot be downloaded without explicit approval by an investigator or administrator of the project.

While the NIH does not have direct access to the projects, there are NIH representatives overseeing grants who have access to information for the BRAIN Initiative-funded projects. The information they can access includes the amount of data in the project, when and how much data were added or removed, types of files uploaded, and whether the project is private or public.

When using the Web Uploader, new data are added to the project, and no files will be replaced during this process.

When uploading with the Aspera client, you can replace existing files and folders with new data. Please note that Aspera does not overwrite data by default and will ask you for confirmation when detecting overlap between new and existing files.

Yes. You can download any part of the dataset, including individual files, using the drop-down menu under the project description. To access a particular file, double-click on the folder until you reach the file you are attempting to download.

Aspera is a desktop file transfer client our data partners use to connect to DABI servers and upload or download data. Aspera accounts provide access to the Aspera server.

You can apply for an account here .

Providers must apply for and receive a separate Aspera account for each project.

DABI accounts   are restricted to the DABI system, which allows them to be created quickly to give users access to DABI tools but cannot connect to Aspera or other INI resources.

Aspera accounts   are INI accounts that require additional validation, as they can be used to access various INI resources besides DABI.

We recommend all data owners apply for an Aspera/INI account because of its benefits over web-based file transfer. You can read more about Aspera here .

Aspera accounts should be ready to use in approximately one week after applying.

Aspera is a desktop file transfer client that users install to connect to DABI servers to upload data. It provides fast transfer speeds and gives users complete control over their data in DABI storage.

Using Aspera requires creating an Aspera/INI account tied to a project.

Each Aspera account only has access to a single project. The DABI Web Uploader is a browser-based uploader that does not require an additional account. The web uploader can upload data to any DABI project a user is affiliated with if they have the necessary project permissions.

Both DABI Web Uploader and Aspera have tools to minimize the burden of lost connections during data upload.

DABI’s Web Uploader recognizes which files have been archived and will transfer only new files from the selected directory.

Aspera pauses the transfer and can resume once the network connection is reestablished.

File transfer depends largely on the uploader’s network connection. Aspera uses a proprietary data transfer protocol developed by IBM, making it faster than traditional File Transfer Clients.

DABI periodically checks its filesystem for changes. This is a resource-intensive process that happens around once every 30 minutes. Therefore, there can be a delay of up to 30 minutes before your data becomes available to others and appears on the various DABI website interfaces. As the DABI infrastructure improves, this delay will shrink. If your data is not appearing on the site after some time and you feel there has been an error in the system, please contact support.

When dataset owners upload datasets to DABI, the files can be immediately shared with the community; however, certain data and metadata are unavailable to the DABI search system until the data owner uploads supplementary information.

Please note: DABI-TOOL will be available in September 2023, and we will provide more information then.

DABI-TOOL is a signal and image preprocessing and analysis platform offering comprehensive visualizations.