June 13, 2013 (repost to Freesurfer list June 24, 2013)

The Human Connectome Project (HCP) WU-Minn consortium is pleased to announce our second quarterly (Q2) release of HCP image and behavioral data.

What’s in the HCP Q2 data release? The Q2 data include multimodal MRI and behavioral data collected from 68 healthy young adults scanned in winter 2012-2013.  The current release expands the total (Q1+Q2) number of released healthy participant data for imaging and/or behavioral measures to 148, including 40 datasets that include the complete HCP protocol (T1w and T2w MRI, rfMRI, tfMRI, dMRI, and behavioral measures) and an additional 60 that include all modalities other than dMRI. The Q2 release also includes:

·         New preprocessing pipelines - Along with the newly processed Q2 datasets, the Q2 release also includes a complete regeneration of the minimally preprocessed data from Q1. We strongly encourage all investigators to update their existing Q1 data to stay current with HCP's latest and greatest.

·         More behavioral data, physiological data - Most of the collected behavioral/individual difference assessments and physiological data for functional MRI scans of Q1/Q2 participants is now available for a majority of subjects.

·         Restricted Data - Qualified investigators who are approved for restricted access  will be given access to restricted data through the ConnectomeDB interface.

·         40 dMRI datasets - Diffusion MRI data is being released for 40 unrelated Q1/Q2 subjects only because HCP has recently implemented an improved image reconstruction algorithm for dMRI data.  Unprocessed and minimally preprocessed datasets based on these improved reconstructions for all Q1, Q2, and Q3 subjects will be included in the Q3 data release scheduled for August 2013.

Access Q2 data on the HCP website. Explore, download, or order the entire HCP Q1+Q2 dataset (~3.5TB of data!) via the ConnectomeDB database (http://humanconnectome.org/data/). Most HCP image and behavioral data is openly accessible to investigators worldwide who register and accept a limited set of Open Access Data Use Terms. Note: Please clear your browser cache before logging in to ConnectomeDB.

Want more information?  Check out the HCP Q2 Data Release Reference Manual (http://humanconnectome.org/documentation/Q2/) for a comprehensive guide that includes details on imaging protocols, behavioral measures, and information that will help users obtain and analyze the Q2 data.

Detailed descriptions of many HCP methods are available in eight papers now in press for a special issue of NeuroImage in 2013 (Van Essen et al., 2013, Ugurbil et al., 2013, Glasser et al., 2013, Smith et al., 2013, Barch et al., 2013, Sotiropolous et al., 2013, Marcus et al., 2013, and Larson-Prior et al., 2013).

For those who choose to download the HCP data and begin to analyze it, we encourage you to join and be active in the hcp-users discussion group (http://www.humanconnectome.org/contact/#subscribe), so that you can tune in to technical discussions on issues that may be of interest.

Please send us your questions and comments anytime to info@humanconnectome.org.

Best,

The WU-Minn HCP Consortium

Jennifer Elam, Ph.D.
Outreach Coordinator, Human Connectome Project
Washington University School of Medicine
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Box 8108
660 South Euclid Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63110
314-362-9387
elamj@pcg.wustl.edu
www.humanconnectome.org