MRI data sharing in psychosis: Key challenges and a new Open Access resource for researchers - ScienceDirect

"To address this need, we have developed such a resource, namely, the Psychosis MRI Shared Data Resource (PsyShareD, https://psyshared.com). It is accessible to all researchers worldwide, regardless of their career stage, resources and expertise. PsyShareD, funded by a Partnership Grant from the UK's Medical Research Council (MR/X010651/1), is combining a large number of high-quality, pre-existing MRI datasets, spanning numerous countries and continents, into one free-to-access resource, with linked demographic, clinical, and cognitive data. PsyShareD data is accessible following a straightforward application process, allowing equitable access to a well-resourced MRI depository covering a diverse range of schizophrenia and psychosis populations (including Schizophrenia, First Episode Psychosis, Bipolar Disorder, Clinical High Risk, Schizotypy, and healthy controls). Importantly, contributing centres provide raw (anonymised) imaging data rather than derived individual-level summary statistics. This allows PsyShareD to conduct a rigorous harmonisation of data across sites. Harmonised image-level data are available for those wanting to conduct voxel-based morphometry and other analyses requiring voxel-level data. Further, comprehensive and harmonised summary outputs from the standard FreeSurfer analysis pipeline (e.g. cortical and sub cortical volumes, cortical thickness, and surface area data) are provided. Linked demographic and clinical data is available for all data, alongside Cognitive/IQ data and other measures (e.g. functional capacity) where available; comprehensive and searchable catalogues show what linked data is available for each dataset, via the website (https://psyshared.com/Data.html). PsyShareD is GDPR compliant and has ethical approval for reuse of the datasets contained within the resource. Confidentiality is ensured via rigorous anonymisation and defacing protocols. Data is securely stored on KCL servers and made available to users who submit a short Data Access Form available on the Psy-ShareD website; the only criterion for approval is that planned projects must be scientifically sound. At the time of writing, PsyShareD has already received data from 9 sites and over 3000 participants; more sites will be added over the coming months...."