External Email - Use Caution
Dear Dr. Elam, I’m reaching out in regard to the recent AABC release of the HCP Aging dataset. I’m currently unable to access the associated CSV file through BALSA, despite being a registered user. I am a graduate student at Trent University in Ontario, Canada, and my research focuses on aging and neurocognitive processes. I would greatly appreciate access to this dataset, as it would be highly relevant to my ongoing work. If possible, could the CSV file be sent to me directly? I have IBM Aspira Connect installed on my computer and can download the file through a secure link or email transfer if that would be more convenient. Thank you very much for your time and assistance. I really appreciate your help in gaining access to the data. Warm regards, Lisa Helson Graduate Student, Department of Psychology Trent University [cid:888e951e-4347-4994-9cb3-0d74bc7a2bf5] ________________________________ From: Jennifer Elam elam4hcp@gmail.com Sent: October 27, 2025 9:32 PM To: freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu freesurfer@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu Subject: [Freesurfer] AABC Release 1 of HCP-Aging & AABC Data on BALSA
External Email - Use Caution
AABC Release 1 of HCP-Aging & AABC Data
The Aging Adult Brain Connectome (AABC) consortium is pleased to announce its initial release of imaging and non-imaging phenotypic data on the ConnectomeDB powered by BALSAhttps://secure-web.cisco.com/1E3sA1hpgb9eIUb1EkJtSztyGN1osO5SHdKLoHmILD8z7pYMywiATCgN55AGuflvMOX2zdiM_pGd2RVZd59gSQCb-JeW_pCu5j1ddV_1c0ShCUWKvjFwasiympHSvc491A9K3xeM9nJJRAGOSJwPuc0cMGKNpr5KpKJnFjkoCWF9d71WTrhRNyAN4-QSTUgZhZO4Ya5KpeuvmYnG58-arrqSNCY6Y69Tr6dVyMJlUq6XFO3BDsjEumyGEJZR9p4sIpLO8Gcl81KhAk1MNm-55X5VHegEWQRnxjjJk8ZufdoGOpxOBRvBDEXmwoX6ax5xmL-9Nb4Ycg7j1A82F98zFYw/https%3A%2F%2Fbalsa.wustl.edu%2Fproject%3Fproject%3DAABC platform. This includes data for all HCP-Aging (HCA) participants and visits, plus an initial set of AABC visits.
AABC is a longitudinal follow-on study to the HCA study of healthy participants ages 36-90+. AABC is recruiting 1000 participants (legacy HCA and new) for two additional longitudinal visits, collecting up to four timepoints per participant to generate within-participant brain trajectories over spans of up to 10 years, enabling examination of vulnerability and resilience factors related to cognitive decline.
AABC Release 1 includes cross-sectional (V1) and longitudinal (V2, V3) 3T MR scans and non-imaging data from 1248 healthy older adults (ages 36-90+) in the HCP-Aging and AABC projects. It includes multi-modal preprocessed (including with FreeSurfer) and unprocessed imaging data from 1248 participants across 2214 imaging visits (many subjects have data from more than one visit). It also contains non-imaging data collected over a broad range of domains for 1248 V1, 762 V2, and 236 V3 (2246 total) in-person visits and remote follow up surveys (non-imaging events). See session breakdowns by study and visit/eventhttps://secure-web.cisco.com/1e5aBoX5ZR8ehhwVS1IbFviFaTUSuBv-_3C81m6beQNcfRyvmvBS9AGlw0gV0OBlrXDAI-XvsosOSvnd7nsDHca_gkooEHiTL77_3Rv_m_tFhAbTn8KoNgkLXN7wgsAulerEzXjyxshFnBP5bPXGURZTy5zFdddfnzrzoXcZ73xBYLsqIxL8eYVFv6MfadgW1wHFxTKrOTxFDa_1MTj3CQ_JFBsKyKdX2x7EQWoUkx3-dsWUMdFykBQRnF12Cu02Xhi6xcR13WBOkECJ0NHCx9hl3ng9FSzbhmLRxB-gr43-eumj7QgkVLuo3SnU_Eu9b/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.humanconnectome.org%2Fstorage%2Fapp%2Fmedia%2Fdocumentation%2FAABC1%2FAABC_Release1_Subject_Events.pdf.
7 T Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) data are available for 138 participants. Multi-modal Imaging Derived Phenotypes (IDPs) are available for participants with imaging data.
Release 1 Highlights:
* Preprocessed and unprocessed structural MRI, resting state fMRI, task fMRI, diffusion MRI, and ASL data in modality-specific "HCP package" datasets downloadable from BALSA (see below). Most users should access Preprocessed Recommended fMRI data that have been cleaned of spatially and temporally specific structured noise and precisely aligned across subjects by multimodal cortical surface registration (MSMAll). * 3T Multi-modal Imaging Derived Phenotypes (IDPs) for released participant sessions available in CSV (zip archives in IDPs tab) and Connectome Workbench-compatible CIFTI imaging package formats. * 7 T Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) brain metabolite data are available for 138 participants. * Non-imaging behavioral and biomeasure data available for released participant sessions and follow up events. * Core Variables, high interest primary variables and summary scores, including MRS brain metabolites, can be viewed and filtered in the BALSA UI (use Column Selector to add, Export CSV to download). * >3,000 Extended variables, including item-level and follow up event variables, for all participant events available in a comprehensive spreadsheet. * NIH Toolbox raw and score data for in-person visits are available as spreadsheets/zip archive. * Visualization instructions and HCA1798 group average template data for visualizing HCP pipelines output, including IDPs, in Connectome Workbench wb_view.
Get Access and Download the data: Get started by Registering for BALSAhttps://secure-web.cisco.com/1zlKesUDMp29RSUVbSD292xuZape2LcLiWdzVpZBVGzNz0N5S4xkjdvWinEqSq-A2AksbdDEhRYBu6ZZTndFOJqDcufJXnNI3wz7bAygsZ3yFKob3NslcVLzGM_6_7YflIbJkRYaif1gQeS2qbCafupEQqO--ZsRxdqs6NvY7NeQYbIbtPTY29TINEMwXts4pOJwDiCZXd7wO0i4msid2TUH_JkT-7YusDFxujzRonwsVAj5Z_Z4wJFdoDRQxPTfq8k0zX9XejxWFrCFFpD3jv1D__sYxpbVCCZk9w8L26S9Qafn3dKnU51Mfd7HW58fU87diyoym1rjCk52Q6q5Viw/https%3A%2F%2Fbalsa.wustl.edu%2Fregister%2Fregister, click on the “ConnectomeDB” tab, and agree to the AABC Data Use Terms. An academic, non-profit, or government email address is required to agree to the AABC Data Use Terms and access the data.
To download imaging data, you must 1) install Aspera Connecthttps://secure-web.cisco.com/1Xr8Q6C27qOK7Ae_kDB0rxbRWJ0oJaa_RR7QfLJCsb5syo5JBhc9qP_QOLuleT8-QYNv3Vi6vtpL5A0LnDUSDqfZYIS41v16x_CIr-Gpo7v227q1rrsEhWhHdEPEoPdljvKcsGjDzqtEWXUj9BIGf_DICW904sj02WIrNjBYUsHclW05_BoLp8US8fIlO7j19MACztwTOokLy7c3n_00yarv-zDmjT1xiDQucYKj0czQFgd8xxH6hMUHmBcZWWqQCYB7Y5v6txbGpshEcZK99y9md6odxzJrBI3zZ3elPswA0nHF03HFyntRW59HyEPtSET_DxC6guxFNRM_ilMtO8Q/https%3A%2F%2Fnam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ibm.com%252Fproducts%252Faspera%252Fdownloads%26data%3D05%257C02%257Celam%2540wustl.edu%257Cf7c31961709347749ab208de13542d85%257C4ccca3b571cd4e6d974b4d9beb96c6d6%257C0%257C0%257C638969449421952511%257CUnknown%257CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%253D%253D%257C0%257C%257C%257C%26sdata%3Du0Ad01z3lxnM1%252BNxt1DhhVb0jbLq9%252FLVSRgWl%252FQoVOY%253D%26reserved%3D0 (scroll down to “IBM Aspera client-deployed software” to find Aspera Connect download links) and 2) an Aspera Connect plugin for your browser (available from Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.). Set Preferences>Transfers in Aspera Connect to a directory with sufficient space for large downloads.
To download the full non-imaging data, click the Files tab and Download under AABC_Release1_Non-imaging_Data-XL.csvhttps://secure-web.cisco.com/1W0PF5h5DPNy4MZqxW2xvdWhizhWq2M12bMNdiCs4f-eEOv78rmeS-ZAO5H3zBNhvp3_MIMDkkukMu9ypijJddlIVMDYXizn1eUjbkgGjPW3jmMNJoSCR_tXeWXk9MNfIhqSXbcGDYj_7pMQsaX_v0E15TA49q6ipwlD_BDZEDu6pl6yJ-hYnr8oUMfvC-0D_QlcXa02FpxRn1FDXFAk-5N1d1hNWpctlthdG0V92DvnxsLTfj1ZkOCVU3Lb1qX8FpVBQDHGtHJ3S4uT5QFcbYG2ny0eF9_knjnVyEl2dptAuCH57lUE8ZXKNdl_4VYeUFXkBUIf0sKGm_31aq9-Avw/https%3A%2F%2Fbalsa.wustl.edu%2Fproject%2FdownloadProjectFile%2Fn3z2P. Use the Column Selector and Export CSV to view, filter on, and download all or subsets of Core Variables for selected subjects.
Join the Community. If you are actively using HCP data and tools, we encourage you to join and be active in the HCP-Users Google grouphttps://secure-web.cisco.com/16VYRKxOjfiaFENy_kteTyNOu85xi0i-u0aDPu_RVOuL5_A-eEe2zAqMawAjuuuVuRECdrnBMEhdaPBEZYerAAp0IHSNhERACOGQSskBD9FA3125a-vR5C6z1DB21hCLp2f_ONIhaxcQPrS1KhDAdSbTztrwgpJuArXHG7HpfFXd4zWABGp3uU1a04tuoEuMfacoi18bUpr6NbmvaXBoBdx1I6b2dbMky8QDbK7FlJPPYebbWXYs8nzrQUd15fHA-2MsMzRKquaLZoZu5Yg2kNTjtBHN9blbRqAu24DzwKWq6tcjqjccXqrPd52x8FtzkFqOyrG-Da50okNRqKkbDrQ/https%3A%2F%2Fnam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fgroups.google.com%252Fa%252Fhumanconnectome.org%252Fforum%252F%2523%21forum%252Fhcp-users%26data%3D05%257C02%257Celam%2540wustl.edu%257Cf7c31961709347749ab208de13542d85%257C4ccca3b571cd4e6d974b4d9beb96c6d6%257C0%257C0%257C638969449421969303%257CUnknown%257CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%253D%253D%257C0%257C%257C%257C%26sdata%3DWAg4r50%252FIEjvud6kfFM9jpfflrOIrIkM2Wix70HaojQ%253D%26reserved%3D0, so that you can tune in to technical discussions on issues that may be of interest. Once you have joined (posts from nonmembers are moderated to control spam), post questions to hcp-users@humanconnectome.orgmailto:hcp-users@humanconnectome.org.
Stay Tuned! In addition to this release, we are actively preparing AABC Release 2 to be made public soon. It will include 600+ more participant session data and other minor updates. We will announce Release 2 on the HCP-Users group, so yet another reason to join!
Best,
AABC Consortium
-- Jennifer Elam, Ph.D. Scientific Outreach, Human Connectome Project Washington University School of Medicine Department of Neuroscience, Box 8108 660 South Euclid Avenue St. Louis, MO 63110 314-362-9387tel:314-362-9387 elam@wustl.edumailto:elam@wustl.edu http://secure-web.cisco.com/1P45xxuiC-5eCrAGr0ki8tHbQxj4PykkRPOcuoWmkG2RvoMh...http://secure-web.cisco.com/1nsKjryUjYwFK35bLr8RIUcsG88u9PxoCUEuwykAyehMj6hH8vaJFt2G7u3A8pRv6oqGl8ahrzZIkT3R0GNhY7xYrh0rIk8zlICKZFvpoVzuph5hYHhyLs2fawjpmxc9NGpf2nWljLvnTK7ZeyAfhhzwU2dO5rYf6-hCx9vNOjl83Og3rj532YO4N2pOWoIo7_qtwM3fSc8myYWfKOWuDDc0ZD6X3VqR9SEroUQhuoECFxlBJ2QcSpNTCsZ5uQMGv_uxJXLM2IxUSUVmX4DstLU3Ziz3xloJXVc4dDXa_icxW-0K49wAB6Z0PQfBe4T-8/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.humanconnectome.org%2F
