BIDS apps: Improving ease of use, accessibility, and reproducibility of neuroimaging data analysis methods

Krzysztof J. Gorgolewski, Fidel Alfaro-Almagro, Tibor Auer, Pierre Bellec, Mihai Capota, M. Mallar Chakravarty, Nathan William Churchill, Alexander Li Cohen, R. Cameron Craddock, Gabriel A. Devenyi, Anders Eklund, Oscar Esteban, Guillaume Flandin, Satrajit S. Ghosh, J. Swaroop Guntupalli, Mark Jenkinson, Anisha Keshavan, Gregory Kiar, Franziskus Liem, Pradeep Reddy Raamana et al. (9 additional authors not shown)

Abstract: Author summary Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive way to measure human brain structure and activity that has been used for over 25 years. There are thousands MRI studies performed every year generating a substantial amount of data. At the same time, many new data analysis methods are being developed every year. The potential of using new analysis methods on the variety of existing and newly acquired data is hindered by difficulties in software deployment and lack of support for standardized input data. Here we propose to use container technology to make deployment of a wide range of data analysis techniques easy. In addition, we adapt the existing data analysis tools to interface with data organized in a standardized way. We hope that this approach will enable researchers to access a wider range of methods when analyzing their data which will lead to accelerated progress in human neuroscience.