COINSTAC: Collaborative Informatics and Neuroimaging Suite Toolkit for Anonymous Computation

Abstract

Central to the field of neuroimaging is the development of techniques for making sense of complex brain data. However, rapid technological advancements are pushing the spatial and temporal resolution of imaging in different modalities to an unprecedented level, leading to large datasets which cannot be analyzed in the traditional desktop computing paradigm. This has led to a paradigm shift in scientific research with an increasing emphasis on collaborative data sharing. However, current approaches to data sharing, such as negotiating multiple data sharing agreements, can be cumbersome. In addition, there are also significant data transfer, organizational, and computational challenges, the result being that collaborative group research requires a great deal of coordination. Human and business factors can hamper research from happening at a constructive pace, maybe even forbidding group research to occur at all.