Last November I was invited to a “Brain Imaging Hackathon”; a term not entirely clear, but carrying connotations of programming, hacking, and staying up all night discussing neuroimaging, the brain, and the latest developments in the field. It may also bring to mind a conclave of skinny, pale, socially awkward nerds who have nothing better to do with their free time.
I found out that it in fact means a conference attended by many attractive, confident, athletic people who happen to be researchers and computer programmers discussing their latest projects - in this case, focusing on web-based tools for visualizing and analyzing neuroimaging data. For example, NiiVue is a web-based imaging visualization tool that allows neuroimagers to share and examine brain volumes without having to upload the volumes themselves to an online database, or send them over email; Boostlet.js contains several “boostlets”, or bookmark apps, which can be used to segment a brain image from most web databases or plot the histogram intensity of the image, with just a click. And EZbids, part of the brainlife.io website, aims to streamline and simplify the conversion of neuroimaging data into BIDS format, a relatively new data organization standard that is becoming rapidly adopted.
To my delight, I was also introduced to a new website called Neurodesk, an online library of neuroimaging software packages and other resources that a researcher can use to analyze his data in a container without having to install or download anything - virtually every analysis package, from FSL to MRtrix, is available to use, and works almost as quickly as it would on your local machine. The advantage is that you no longer have to worry about conflicts in the paths between different packages, or be concerned about whether the latest version of Python is compatible with the software you are trying to install; we have all felt the sudden rush of panic when the Terminal informs us that Python version 3.1.2 is no longer supported, and that absolutely nothing you do can fix it, ever - similar to the feeling you get when you accidentally flush your car keys down the toilet at a truck stop in Walla Walla, Washington State, or when you are so hopped up on sugar at the movie theater that you use Google Maps on your phone to try to locate the restroom.
All of this, along with interviews with the developers of these packages, I was able to record during my trip, which you can review in the video below. I plan to record more of these as I travel around the country for workshops and conferences, talking with some of the leading developers in the field and discovering what the latest trends are in neuroimaging analysis - so make sure to stay tuned, subscribe, and if you find my keys, let me know.