E-infrastructures for neuroscientists: The GAAIN and neuGRID examples

Abstract

Multisite-distributed e-infrastructures can foster computational resources, share brain imaging data, and facilitate data analysis in the study of neurodegenerative diseases. The Global Alzheimer’s Association Interactive Network (GAAIN— https://www.gaain.org) is a platform federating worldwide datasets of the brain. The European side of the GAAIN initiative (EU-GAAIN) exposes five datasets (4051 subjects from E-ADNI/PharmaCOG, I-ADNI, ARWIBO, EDSD, OASIS) currently hosted in the distributed neuGRID e-infrastructure (www.neugrid4you.eu). EU-GAAIN offers a huge amount of morphological and functional scans, surrogate imaging biomarker values (i.e. 4653 cortical and subcortical volumes), cognitive assessments and biochemical markers (i.e.: 286 CSF values, 235 APOE genotype). GAAIN platform provides 24 datasets (almost half million subjects) that can be explored through a user-friendly interface called “GAAIN Interrogator”. Through the GAAIN web-portal, queries results are displayed in graphs and summary tables providing information to understand trends and discover new evidences. The main objective of the GAAIN project is to build a technology for understanding the underlying mechanism of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia through a data-driven approach. All the GAAIN data mapped in a common data schema are federated through the Data Partner Clients (DPC) and a distributed pipeline enactment service that allows the execution of analyses relying on distributed Docker machines. Research efficiency can be increased if neuroscientists will access secure federated platforms from a single point of access. GAAIN initiative is funded by the Alzheimer’s Association and by National Institutes of Health grants.