NEURODESK

The Neurodesk project is an open-source software platform for neuroimaging research. Neurodesk lowers the barrier for researchers to engage in open science practices and advances neuroimaging research by facilitating access to open software, open data, and the development of educational resources. Neurodesk enables scientists worldwide to access neuroimaging data analysis tools and apply them in a reproducible manner. Neurodesk is also instrumental in bridging research and clinical domains by enabling containerised neuroimaging tools to be integrated into clinical environments, including MRI scanner consoles.

Neurodesk cultivates innovation, collaboration, and the implementation of best research practices. It offers a repertoire of 269 tools across various software versions, encompassing a wide range of neuroimaging data analysis domains. The project has been widely adopted, with a user base exceeding 1,300 active users from over 60 different countries each month. It is also a core teaching and training resource at institutions such as the University of Queensland (Australia), the University of Wollongong (Australia), Clemson University (US), the Athinoula Martinos Centre at Harvard (US), the Technion (Israel), and the University of South Carolina (US).

Neurodesk’s applicability has recently extended into clinical settings. By leveraging Siemens’ OpenRecon and community-driven efforts, we are integrating containerized workflows into MRI scanner environments to enable real-time, reproducible image reconstruction and analysis at the point of acquisition. This enables the translation of science directly into clinical practice, allowing scientific innovation to benefit patient care as fast as possible.

The project is co-led by Early-Career Researchers and actively contributes to Open Science guidelines and community standards through public GitHub development, documentation, and participation in hackathons.

Partners

This work is supported by the Wellcome Trust with a Discretionary Award as part of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), The Kavli Foundation, and Wellcome’s Essential Open Source Software for Science (Cycle 6) Program (Grant Ref: [313306/Z/24/Z])

This project is also supported by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) via the AEDAPT platform project:
Australian Electrophysiology Data Analytics Platform.