Grants and Projects

Advancing Standardization of Neurophysiology Data Through Dissemination of NWB

The National Institute of Health, through project 5U24NS120057, funded Oliver Rübel (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and Benjamin Dichter (CatalystNeuro) to disseminate Neurodata Without Borders (NWB) neurophysiology technologies developed as part of the NIH BRAIN Initiative broadly to the neuroscience research community. To lower the barrier of adopting NWB, the project focuses on the needs of 1) neuroscience researchers and laboratories by enhancing user training, support, and coverage of new technologies and 2) neuroscience tools and technologies by maintaining core NWB technologies and integrating with a wide array of powerful data tools and technologies.

DANDI: Distributed Archives for Neurophysiology Data Integration

The National Institutes of Health, through project 1R24MH117295, funded Satrajit Ghosh (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Yaroslav Halchenko (Center for Open Neuroscience) to create the DANDI archive for neurophysiology Data.

  • Provides a cloud platform for versioned neurophysiology data storage for the purposes of collaboration, archiving, and preservation.
  • Provide easy to use tools for neurophysiology data submission and access in the archive
  • Facilitates adoption of NWB via standardized applications for data ingestion, visualization and processing.

See the DANDI website and GitHub organization for details. (August 2019-April 2029).

Kavli Sponsored Projects

Kavli Sponsored Projects

The Kavli Foundation has provided seed grants to aid labs in standardizing their experimental data using the NWB data format. Funds were used to support the building and sharing of data or software in the NWB ecosystem. We are no longer accepting applications for 2022 and 2023.

Recent seed grant awardees include:

2023 2022 2021 2020 2019
  • 2023
  • Mark Histed , and Adam Thomas , NIMH
    • Extending the NWB standard for holographic photo-stimulation
  • 2022
  • Kurt Hass , University of British Columbia
    • SWC Integration with NWB
  • Chi Wang Ip , University of Houston
    • Extending NWB standard and NWB widgets to capture DBS datasets
  • Lauri Nurminen , University Hospital Würzburg
    • Database to share data for optogenetic perturbation of recurrent cortical connections
  • Johannes Sarnthein , University of Zurich
    • Convert dataset of human single neuron recordings
  • Dennis Segebarth , University Hospital Würzburg
    • Convert dataset of human single neuron recordings
  • 2021
  • Stephan Bickel , Feinstein Institute of Medical Research
    • Converting iEEG dataset into NWB
  • Dayu Lin , New York University
    • Developing codes for translating fiber photometry datasets into NWB
  • Mala Murthy , Princeton University
    • Adding NWB functionality to SLEAP: An Open Source Platform for Multi-Animal Pose Tracking
  • Ruben Portugues , and Luigi Petrucco , Technical University of Munich
    • Bring zebrafish datasets to NWB with a Stytra data converter
  • Chris Rogers , Emory University
    • Convert dataset of human single neuron recordings
  • John Thompson , and Daniel Kramer , University of Colorado Anschutz
    • Use of NWB format for three unique intracranial human datasets
  • Lingling Yang , University of Minnesota
    • Convert data from Neuromodulation Research Center into NWB
  • 2020
  • György Buzsáki , New York University
    • Translating electrophysiological datasets collected in the Buzsáki Lab into NWB for public access
  • Rosa Cossart , and Michel Picardo , Institut de Neurobiologie de la Méditerranée
    • NWB compatible open-source toolboxes for calcium imaging
  • Robert Gaunt , and Rehab Neural Engineering Labs , University of Pittsburgh
    • Integrating Multipurpose Data Framework with NWB using data from sacral spinal cord stimulation in cats
  • Ashley Juavinett , University of California , San Diego
  • Sabine Kastner , Princeton University
    • Integrating non-human primate electrophysiological data collected through different recording systems into NWB to promote data sharing and open research
  • Eric Kuebler , and Julio Martinez , Western University
    • Conducting a cross-species, cross-laboratory comparison of mouse, macaque, and human cortical intracellular electrophysiology datasets using NWB
  • Alexander Mathis , EPFL
    • Integrate NWB data format within the DeepLabCut ecosystem
  • 2019
  • Tim Buschman , Princeton Neuroscience Institute , Princeton University
    • Convert electrophysiological recordings from non-human primates performing a working memory task into the NWB format.
  • Andrea Giovannucci , The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • A graphical visualization tool for NWB calcium imaging pipelines.
  • Dieter Jaeger , Emory University
    • Create NWB format for multiscale analysis of sensory-motor cortical gating in behaving mice
  • Simon Schultz , Imperial College London
    • Adapt NeuroSEE two photon calcium imaging pipeline to NWB, and convert electrophysiology (Tang, PLOS ONE, 2016) and calcium imaging data in mice.
  • Nick Steinmetz , University of Washington
    • Convert extracellular electrophysiology data recorded using a neuropixel probe in mice.
  • Shreejoy Tripathy , Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto
    • Converting Axon Binary Format based intracellular electrophysiology data files to NWB
  • Taufik Valiante , University of Toronto
    • Convert whole cell patch-clamp electrophysiological recordings from human cortical neurons into the NWB format.

    Past Projects

    NWB: A Data Standard and Software Ecosystem for Neurophysiology

    The National Institutes of Health, through project 1R24MH116922, funded Oliver Rübel (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and Lydia Ng (Allen Institute for Brain Science) to continue development of the NWB data format and software ecosystem to enable standardization, sharing, and reuse of neurophysiology data and analyses, enhancing discovery and reproducibility. This funding is part of the NIH’s BRAIN Initiative support to develop standards.(September 2018-May 2020). For updates on this project see our Progress Reports page.

    Enabling Shared Analysis and Processing of Large Neurophysiology Data

    The National Institutes of Health, through project 1R44MH115731, funded William Schroeder (Kitware, Inc.) to create software tools to browse, process, analyze, and visualize NWB data. This funding is part of the NIH’s BRAIN Initiative Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant program. (July 2017-June 2020).

    High Performance Computing Project at the Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory

    The Kavli Foundation provided support (2016-2018) to Kristofer Bouchard at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab for the continued development of the NWB 2.0 data format by creating a modern software architecture and high-performance computing (HPC) enabled data analysis tools utilizing NWB formatted data.

    The Berkeley Lab team also included Oliver Rübel and Andrew Tritt.

    NWB Community Liason

    The Kavli Foundation is providing support (2019-present) to Oliver Rübel at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to support community engagement, outreach and software development. This program is currently supporting Benjamin Dichter as a community liaison for NWB.

    Simons Foundation Sponsors Development of MatNWB

    The Simons Foundation funds projects (Aug.2017 – present) to develop and expand the NWB2.0 Matlab API MatNWB to allow for adoption by a larger portion of the neuroscience community.