Doubling up on the fly: NeuroMorpho.Org Meets Big Data.

Abstract

NeuroMorpho.Org is a centralized repository of neuronal reconstructions hosting data from a variety of species, brain regions, and experimental conditions1. This resource aims to provide dense coverage of available data by including all digital tracings described in peer-reviewed publications that the authors are willing to share2. Although most reconstructions to date are acquired manually or semi-manually3, the transition to quasi-automated methods is widely considered as necessary for long-term progress4. The 2010 DIADEM competition (DiademChallenge.org) helped foster considerable advances towards tracing automation5 and was followed one year later by the large-scale reconstruction of more than 16,000 Drosophila neurons6. The public posting of all image stacks and corresponding digital tracings on flycircuit.tw after an additional year7 constituted the first (and so far only) success in high-throughput digital morphology. Although flycircuit.tw reconstructions are beginning to enable new analysis and discoveries by independent research groups8, these data were posted in a commercial format (vsg3d.com/amira/skeletonization) and lacked useful information such as the somatic brain region. Following the open invitation of flycircuit.tw to copy, transform, and redistribute the material for non-commercial re-use, here we announce inclusion of this dataset in non-proprietary SWC format, along with additional metadata and morphometric measurements, under “Chiang archive” in NeuroMorpho.Org version 6.0. With this major release, the number of NeuroMorpho.Org reconstructions more than doubles from 11,335 to 27,385.