The Cerebral Blood Flow Biomedical Informatics Research Network (CBFBIRN) data repository

Abstract

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI provides an accurate and reliable measure of cerebral blood flow (CBF). A rapidly growing number of CBF measures are being collected both in clinical and research settings around the world, resulting in a large volume of data across a wide spectrum of study populations and health conditions. Here, we describe a central CBF data repository with integrated processing workflows, referred to as the Cerebral Blood Flow Biomedical Informatics Research Network (CBFBIRN). The CBFBIRN provides an integrated framework for the analysis and comparison of CBF measures across studies and sites. In this work, we introduce the main capabilities of the CBFBIRN (data storage, processing, and sharing), describe what types of data are available, explain how users can contribute to the data repository and access existing data from it, and discuss our long-term plans for the CBFBIRN.