Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF)


 

NIF (www.neuinfo.org) is a publicly accessible online portal that helps researchers discover and share a variety of neuroscience resources such as data, materials and software.  Its search tools offer multiple ways to explore its rapidly growing content, which currently includes a customized neuroscience-relevant web index of approximately one-half million pages, a curated registry of more than 2000 neuroscience-relevant resources, and an expanding inventory of federated data sources.  The NIF data federation enables users to query multiple databases simultaneously and display the results within the NIF interface, categorized by resource type (such as a grants database, an image database or an atlas) and biological scale (such as gene expression or brain activity patterns).

Like other search interfaces, NIF allows simple keyword searches, but it also enables concept-based queries.  Through its advanced search features, users can elect to explore related terms and synonyms.  For example, if a user enters the word “neurodegenerative,” NIF can identify a range of neurodegenerative disorders and related terms to help narrow the search. These advanced capabilities are made possible by NIF’s Neurolex (http://neurolex.org/wiki/), a wiki-based system for defining and categorizing commonly used neuroscience terms and concepts.  Neuroscientists using terminologies not currently represented in NIF are encouraged to work with NIF to make their vocabularies available through Neurolex.  Resource providers also are encouraged to read the NIF blog (http://blog.neuinfo.org/) for best practices to facilitate resource discovery and federation.  Investigators at the University of California, San Diego are leading the current phase of NIF development, and regularly adding new features to NIF with input from the research community.  Participation in the NIF community and news about NIF are available via Twitter, NIF webinars, the NIF mailing list, the NIF blog and popular social news and bookmarking sites. Information for easily adding NIF search boxes to the Firefox search bar and to web pages is available on the NIF portal.

Contacts: Karen Skinner, Ph.D.
Deputy Director for Science and Technology Development
Division of Basic Neuroscience and Behavior Research
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
kskinner@nida.nih.gov
(301) 435-0886


David Shurtleff, Ph.D.
Director, Division of Basic Neuroscience and Behavioral Research
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
dshurtle@mail.nih.gov
(301) 443-1887

 

 

NITRC and NIF are funded by the Institutes and Centers that comprise the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research.