"Traumatic brain injury is often referred to as the most complex disorder affecting the most complex organ," he said.
Add to that the fact that the brain contains roughly 300 billion brain cells that decode 100 trillion messages to enable us to think and act, and it's easy to see why researchers need lots of data from lots of different brains and brain injuries, Bigler said.
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"Very large sample sizes are essential, otherwise it would be impossible to embrace all of this variability," he said.
To start, the ENIGMA project will apply different types of advanced analysis methods to MRI data already collected in collaboration with researchers from the United States, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, South Africa and South America.
MRI images today can tell clinicians the size of the injury and the kind of injury it is. But Olsen's research group is working with research-based MRI methods that use more advanced algorithms and statistics.
"We're working to develop better and more standardized ways of summarizing and making sense of the MRI data, and we hope to contribute to breakthroughs in research that will benefit patients," Olsen says.
The heterogeneity in methods and ways of analysing, along with the heterogeneity of the patient group, has made this kind of standardization impossible so far. Making progress in methods development can only happen through an international collaborative project of this magnitude that includes several thousand datasets.
Another advantage of this effort to combine data that might otherwise seem impossible to combine-- what researchers call "data harmonization" -- is that it can enable researchers to use old data that has been already collected, says Penn State's Hillary.
"Data aggregation is vital in imaging and genetics research, where data sets and statistical power in any one lab are small, but combining data from labs around the world offers new possibilities to understand brain disorders and may accelerate science," he said.
"Our effort is getting a 'second life' from data that have already been collected," Dennis added.
The knowledge and analysis methods that are developed will be shared openly with all interested researchers. Where the individual research groups approve it, arrangements will also be made for the enormous datasets to be open access.
The working group NTNU Open Data at the NTNU University Library will look into how to facilitate data sharing among researchers in a good and appropriate way.
