Italian, European, And International Neuroinformatics Efforts: An Overview

Neuroinformatics is a research field that focuses on software tools capable of identifying, analysing, modelling, organising and sharing multi-scale neuroscience data. Neuroinformatics has exploded in the last two decades with the emergence of the Big-Data phenomenon, characterised by the so-called 3Vs (Volume, Velocity, and Variety), which provided neuroscientists with an improved ability to acquire and process data faster and more cheaply thanks to technical improvements in clinical, genomic, and radiological technologies. This situation has led to a "data deluge", as neuroscientists can routinely collect more study-data in a few days than they could in a year just a decade ago. To address this phenomenon, several neuroimaging-focused neuroinformatics platforms have emerged, funded by national or transnational agencies, with the following goals: (i) development of tools for archiving and organising analytical data (XNAT, REDCap, and LabKey); (ii) development of data-driven models evolving from reductionist approaches to multidimensional models (RIN, IVN, HBD, EuroPOND, E-DADS, GAAIN, BRAIN); and (iii) development of e-infrastructures to provide sufficient computational power and storage resources (neuGRID, HBP-EBRAINS, LONI, CONP). Although the scenario is still fragmented, there are technological and economical attempts at both national and international levels to introduce high standards for open and Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) neuroscience worldwide.