[Neuroinfo] Towards a standard organization for animal electrophysiology: a new BIDS Extension Proposal

[Sylvain Takerkart]

(apologies for cross-postings)

Dear everyone,

With this email, we would like to introduce a new BIDS Extension 
Proposal (BEP) dedicated to electrophysiological data recorded in 
animals (BIDS-animal-ephys). The BEP document is available here 
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oG-C8T-dWPqfVzL2W8HO3elWK8NIh2cOCPssRGv23n0> 
and we are now seeking feedback (e.g comments directly in the document, 
or posts in our discussion forum 
<https://github.com/INCF/neuroscience-data-structure/issues>) from the 
community at large to make sure this suits the largestpossible array 
ofneeds in animal electrophysiology.

A bit of context and history. BIDS <https://bids.neuroimaging.io/> is a 
simple and intuitive way to organize and describe neuroscientific data 
in a standardized manner, originally developed for human neuroimaging 
data (see the first paper on MRI-BIDS 
<https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fsdata.2016.44>), and widely extended since 
its original introduction to other data modalities (see e.g EEG-BIDS 
<https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0104-8>, or MEG-BIDS 
<https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.110>). A good number of exchanges 
have already taken place with electrophysiologists, with initial debates 
on whether adapting the hierarchical organization offered (and imposed) 
by BIDS (for other data modalities and recorded in human subjects) could 
suit the needs of the community of researchers working with animal 
models. Of course, it will change the habits of some, but a consensus 
has emerged that sticking to what BIDS suggests could suit the needs of 
a vast majority and that the long term benefits of such a 
standardization could be worth changing some habits. These observations 
have led to the formalization of this BIDS-animal-ephys Extension 
Proposal (BEP).

For info, this BEP has been drafted by members of the INCF Working Group 
on Standardized Data Structures 
<https://incf.org/sig/incf-working-group-standardized-data>, that was 
initiated in 2020 to attempt standardizing the handling of 
neuroscientific data recorded in animal models. Note that at the present 
time (early 2021), the discussions in this Working Group are split to 
tackle two different issues:

- How to handle animal data in a generic manner (i.e across data 
modalities, for both in vitro and in vivo data etc.)? The specific 
discussion about this topic is centralized here 
<https://github.com/INCF/neuroscience-data-structure/issues/9>.

- How to handle electrophysiological data recorded in animals, and how 
to standardize the associated metadata? This is the main objective of 
the present BEP.

Please consider joining this working group if you would like to 
contribute to this effort (either directly on these topics, or for other 
questions / data modalities). You can also reach the moderators of the 
present BEP through our main discussion forum 
<https://github.com/INCF/neuroscience-data-structure/issues>. Also, 
please do not hesitate to forward this message around you so that we 
reach as many electrophysiologists as possible!

Thanks in advance for your feedback and contributions!


-- 
Sylvain Takerkart

Institut des Neurosciences de la Timone (INT)
UMR 7289 CNRS-AMU
Marseille, France
tél: +33 (0)4 91 324 007
http://www.int.univ-amu.fr/_TAKERKART-Sylvain_?lang=en

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