**SUMMARY**

***NIfTI Workshop: Users of Informatics Tools for fMRI Research***

***Friday, April 13, 2001***

*Conference Rooms A1/A2, Neuroscience Center*

*6001 Executive Boulevard*

*Rockville, Maryland*

I PURPOSE

> This meeting brought together a range of investigators who use
> functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and related informatics
> tools. The purpose of the meeting was to have participants: 1) discuss
> issues related to the use, usefulness, and usability of those
> informatics tools, and 2) consider ways in which the relevant research
> communities can be most fruitfully engaged with the Neuroimaging
> Informatics Technology Initiative (NIfTI). This meeting represents the
> first of what is expected to be an ongoing series of workshops to
> provide such perspectives and information to NIfTI through intensive
> discourse.

**II BACKGROUND**

> Over the course of the past several years, through a variety of large
> and small venues, the research community that uses neuroimaging has
> made clear the need for informatics tools that are reliable, easy to
> use, clearly documented, and capable of letting scientists use imaging
> to its full potential for better understanding brain function in
> healthy and disordered states. In addition, that research community
> has expressed repeatedly interest in being able to compare rigorously
> different tools and algorithms, having higher levels of compatibility
> and interoperability across tools and data, and having training
> opportunities in neuroimaging informatics that are not currently
> available. NIfTI has been developed to address these needs.
>
> As described to workshop participants by NIMH staff, the goal of NIfTI
> is to provide coordinated and targeted service, training, and research
> to speed the development and enhance the utility of informatics tools
> related to neuroimaging. The early focus of this initiative will be on
> those informatics tools used in fMRI, as they represent a
> circumscribed set of issues which, if addressed, would have a
> significant impact on brain research. If successful in the realm of
> fMRI, it is anticipated that NIfTI would expand to address similar
> issues for other modalities. Specific objectives of NIfTI that were
> described at the workshop include:

-   Enhance existing informatics tools used widely in neuroimaging
    research

-   Disseminate neuroimaging informatics tools and information about
    them

-   Discuss with tool-user and tool-developer communities rational
    approaches to solving problems in neuroimaging informatics such as
    those posed by the lack of interoperability across different data
    formats and across different tools

-   Offer neuroimaging informatics training activities and research
    career development opportunities to those in the tool-user and
    tool-developer communities

-   Support research and development of neuroimaging informatics tools

> An overarching principle of NIfTI is that its activities will be
> guided through close and ongoing communication with the tool-user and
> tool-developer communities. Another key characteristic of NIfTI is the
> flexibility that the initiative will have in meeting the needs of the
> research community. This flexibility will be afforded by supporting
> NIfTI activities by both intramural and extramural resources through a
> wide range of mechanisms, including, but not limited to, grants.
> Moreover, the service, training, and research activities will be
> coordinated with one another within NIfTI, and they will be
> coordinated with other related programs, initiatives, and activities.
> Finally, NIfTI is envisioned as a multi-Institute/Center initiative.
>
> It is the express intent of NIfTI to work with authors of tools who
> are interested in participating in NIfTI activities; none of these
> activities will succeed if they are in any way forced upon the
> community. In addition, NIfTI activities will make sure to abide by,
> support, and accommodate fully the existing intellectual property
> rights arrangements regarding tools. This includes taking care to
> assure that associations between tools and their authors are
> maintained.
>
> As the early focus of NIfTI is on enhancing existing informatics tools
> used in fMRI, and as NIfTI will require close interaction with the
> pertinent research communities, the participants were asked to address
> issues related to such tools that they use in their laboratories, and
> to consider ways in which NIfTI might best become and stay engaged
> with the research communities relevant to neuroimaging informatics.

**III DISCUSSION and FINDINGS**

> Participants were asked to address specific questions to stimulate
> discussion on those and related topics. Participants were asked about
> the nature of their neuroscience research, which specific fMRI-related
> informatics tools are used in their laboratories, the positive and
> negative aspects of the tools as they use them, and the criteria used
> when choosing a tool for fMRI informatics. Participants were also
> asked about criteria and processes that might be used to identify and
> prioritize candidate tools for enhancing under NIfTI. Finally,
> participants were asked for suggestions for maintaining an ongoing,
> open discourse through which members of the research communities that
> use and develop neuroimaging informatics tools might best provide
> guidance to the activities supported by NIfTI.
>
> The participants reported that their neuroscience research included
> studies of: schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, substance abuse,
> alcoholism, depression, neuroAIDS, neurosurgery guidance and
> assessment, pediatric psychiatric disorders, healthy aging and
> development, working memory, the relationship between emotion,
> motivation and cognition, and the physiological basis of the blood
> oxygenation level-dependent signal in fMRI. This diversity of research
> interests reflects the breadth of neuroscience to which NIfTI is meant
> to be relevant.
>
> Tools that were found to be most widely used by the participants
> included AFNI, SPM, and AIR, although several participants' research
> relied heavily on tools that were developed in their own labs.
> Extensive discussion made clear that identifying widely-used tools, as
> well as the advantages and disadvantages of particular tools used for
> particular purposes, would benefit by broadly canvassing the
> community. The manner in which NIfTI could provide this service was
> discussed. Specifically, it was suggested that questions regarding the
> use, usefulness, and usability of tools could be posed on the NIfTI
> web site, and responses from the research community could be collected
> on a web form. The members of the research community could be invited
> to offer their input through broad solicitations that might include
> standard notification means (e.g., a notice in the NIH Guide to Grants
> and Contracts) as well as emailed messages sent to NIH grantees,
> members of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, members of the
> Society for Cognitive Neuroscience, etc.
>
> Regarding the manner in which participants chose tools to use in their
> research, while some tools are used as a legacy of previous
> experience, criteria used in assessing whether a tool should be
> adopted by a laboratory included: availability, ease of installation,
> ease of use, quality of documentation, and how widely used is the tool
> (so as to facilitate comparison of results from other laboratories).
>
> The ease of use was discussed by the participants as a two-edged
> sword. Thus, although it is desirable that tools are easy to use, the
> easier a tool is to use, the greater is the chance that investigators
> with a poor understanding of the underlying principles and operations
> of the tool may use it in error, producing results that might lead to
> incorrect conclusions. Such risk could be diminished by clear
> documentation and other information about the tool being made
> available to the research community.
>
> The manner in which NIfTI might serve in this regard was discussed.
> For example, if documentation is not available for a particular tool,
> resources from NIfTI could be used to provide (with, of course,
> permission and willing assistance of the tool's author) support for
> developing documentation and related information. This information
> could then be made available by NIfTI through postings on the NIfTI
> web site. NIfTI could also support the development of information
> about tools beyond mere documentation. This might include web-based
> examples of how to use tools for certain functions, as well as
> information about the assumptions made in particular operations, etc.
> Beyond such tutorials, NIfTI could provide broader training to
> tool-users at different levels of sophistication for use on various
> tools (or to convey certain concepts upon which tools are based,
> etc.). This training could be provided directly through, for example,
> short courses on the NIH Campus, as well as through mechanisms such as
> education, training, or conference grants made to universities.
>
> The need for information about tools, including, but not limited to,
> documentation, was discussed at several different points during the
> workshop. Such information would include validation of particular
> algorithms for particular purposes, as well as results of comparison
> of tools (and algorithms used by different tools). Such comparisons
> and validations would, of course, be done best with well-characterized
> data.
>
> Only a small number of papers have been published comparing tools and
> algorithms; still, these were considered by the participants to have
> been important contributions to the field. NIfTI could play a role in
> providing support for additional such studies and disseminating the
> results to the community. Moreover, NIfTI could contribute to advances
> by supporting the research community and working with it to develop
> and disseminate well-characterized data sets so the results of data
> processing could be assessed fully.
>
> Related to the issue of comparing tools and algorithms is the issue of
> data format. Currently, different tools and labs use a variety of data
> formats, which render direct comparison of tools (and research
> results) difficult or impossible. The participants considered this
> problem worth addressing by NIfTI, and concurred with the
> recommendation put forth by the participants in a workshop held April
> 24, 2000. That recommendation was to develop a community-based
> technical solution, envisioned as being accomplished through the
> formation of a working group of a half-dozen or so people who are
> actually the ones writing the software used in the tools. NIfTI could
> support meetings of this group, disseminate written summaries of the
> progress of such a group, and invite comment from the research
> community on the progress toward a solution.
>
> The participants pointed out the fact that as powerful as fMRI is for
> brain research, there are many fundamental questions that remain to be
> answered regarding the meaning of the signal, the statistical and
> analytic treatment of the data, and the interpretation of such
> treatment. In addition, new approaches are needed to continue to
> expand the utility of fMRI for better understanding brain function.
> The manner in which NIfTI might address these needs was discussed.
> NIfTI could support research and development efforts directly through
> a variety of mechanisms (including grants), as well as serving a
> coordination role across existing programs such as the
> multi-institute, multi-agency Human Brain Project, the multi-institute
> Insight Program for image data called Insight, and the NIMH's
> Neurotechnology Program. Guiding principles of support and
> coordination of research is that creativity is to be encouraged and
> duplication of effort is to be discouraged.
>
> Participants recognized the importance for NIfTI to have an active
> connection with the community of researchers that use neuroimaging
> informatics tools and to the community that produces those technical
> capabilities and formulates their intellectual underpinnings. Although
> participants considered physical meetings, such as workshops and
> conferences, useful and worth holding periodically, participants
> thought that a sophisticated web site could meet many of the needs for
> maintaining a fruitful interaction between NIfTI activities and the
> communities which are meant to be served by them. Such a web site
> would not only post information about NIfTI, but could serve as a
> point of one-stop-shopping for many of the needs of the neuroimaging
> community, providing dissemination of: tools themselves,
> documentation, tutorials, characterized data sets, bibliographic data
> related to neuroimaging informatics, validation data, etc. The web
> site could also offer a dynamic forum for "discussion" and public
> comment about any of a number of issues that will be addressed by
> NIfTI.

**IV PARTICIPANTS**

> Deanna M. Barch, Ph.D.
>
> Washington University
>
> Department of Psychology
>
> Campus Box 1125
>
> St. Louis, Missouri 63130-4899
>
> Phone: 314-935-8729
>
> Email: dbarch@artsci.wustl.edu
>
> Robert W. Cox, Ph.D.
>
> Unit on Scientific & Statistical Computing
>
> National Institute of Mental Health
>
> Bldg 10, Room 1D80
>
> 10 Center Drive, MSC1148
>
> Bethesda, MD 20892--1148
>
> Phone: 301-594-9196
>
> Email: rwcox@nih.gov
>
> John Desmond, M.D.
>
> Stanford University
>
> Department of Radiology
>
> Phone: 650-498-5368
>
> Email: jdesmond@stanford.edu
>
> Mark D\'Esposito, M.D.
>
> Wills Neurological Institute
>
> and Department of Psychology
>
> University of California
>
> 3210 Tolman Hall
>
> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650
>
> Phone: 510-643-3340
>
> Fax: 510-642-5293
>
> Email: despo@socrates.berkeley.edu
>
> Terry L. Jernigan, Ph.D.
>
> Brain Image Analysis Lab 0949
>
> University of California, San Diego
>
> 9500 Gilman Dr
>
> Mail Code 0949
>
> La Jolla, CA 92093-0949
>
> Phone: 858-622-5882
>
> Fax: 858-622-5890
>
> Email: tjernigan@ucsd.edu
>
> Ron Kikinis, M.D.
>
> Department of Radiology
>
> Brigham and Women's Hospital
>
> Surgical Planning Laboratory
>
> AMB II, L1-Room 0069, BWH Radiology
>
> 75 Francis Street
>
> Boston, MA 02115
>
> Phone: (617) 732-7692
>
> Email: kikinis@bwh.harvard.edu
>
> Daniel S. Pine, M.D.
>
> Division of Intramural Research Programs
>
> National Institute of Mental Health
>
> Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience
>
> 9000 Rockville Pike
>
> Building 1, Room B320
>
> Bethesda, Maryland 20892
>
> Phone: 301-594-1318
>
> Email: pined@intra.nimh.nih.gov
>
> Edith V. Sullivan, Ph.D.
>
> Stanford University
>
> Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
>
> Mail Code 5723
>
> Stanford, California, 94305-5723
>
> Phone : 650-859-2880
>
> Email : edie@stanford.edu
>
> Lalith Talagala, Ph.D.
>
> National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
>
> Division of Intramural Research
>
> NIH NMR Research Facility
>
> Building 10, Room B1D69
>
> Bethesda, Maryland 20892
>
> Phone: 301-402-3253
>
> Fax: 301-402-0119
>
> Email: talagalal@ninds.nih.gov
>
> Arthur W. Toga, Ph.D.
>
> Department of Neurology
>
> University of California
>
> 710 Westwood Plaza
>
> Los Angeles, CA 90024-1769
>
> Phone: 310-206-2101
>
> Fax: 310-206-5518
>
> Email: toga@loni.ucla.edu