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There is great need for coordination around standards and best practices in neuroscience to support efforts to make neuroscience a data-centric discipline. Major brain initiatives launched around the world are poised to generate huge stores of neuroscience data. At the same time, neuroscience, like many domains in biomedicine, is confronting the issues of transparency, rigor, and reproducibility. Widely used, validated standards and best practices are key to addressing the challenges in both big and small data science, as they are essential for integrating diverse data and for developing a robust, effective, and sustainable infrastructure to support open and reproducible neuroscience. However, developing community standards and gaining their adoption is difficult. The current landscape is characterized both by a lack of robust, validated standards and a plethora of overlapping, underdeveloped, untested and underutilized standards and best practices. The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF), an independent organization dedicated to promoting data sharing through the coordination of infrastructure and standards, has recently implemented a formal procedure for evaluating and endorsing community standards and best practices in support of the FAIR principles. By formally serving as a standards organization dedicated to open and FAIR neuroscience, INCF helps evaluate, promulgate, and coordinate standards and best practices across neuroscience. Here, we provide an overview of the process and discuss how neuroscience can benefit from having a dedicated standards body.

There is great need for coordination around standards and best practices in neuroscience to support efforts to make neuroscience a data-centric discipline. Major brain initiatives launched around the world are poised to generate huge stores of neuroscience data. At the same time, neuroscience, like many domains in biomedicine, is confronting the issues of transparency, rigor, and reproducibility. Widely used, validated standards and best practices are key to addressing the challenges in both big and small data science, as they are essential for integrating diverse data and for developing a robust, effective, and sustainable infrastructure to support open and reproducible neuroscience. However, developing community standards and gaining their adoption is difficult. The current landscape is characterized both by a lack of robust, validated standards and a plethora of overlapping, underdeveloped, untested and underutilized standards and best practices. The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF), an independent organization dedicated to promoting data sharing through the coordination of infrastructure and standards, has recently implemented a formal procedure for evaluating and endorsing community standards and best practices in support of the FAIR principles. By formally serving as a standards organization dedicated to open and FAIR neuroscience, INCF helps evaluate, promulgate, and coordinate standards and best practices across neuroscience. Here, we provide an overview of the process and discuss how neuroscience can benefit from having a dedicated standards body.

Real-time impairment of ocular blood flow (OBF) under common carotid artery stenosis (CCAS) has not been ascertained. We aimed to longitudinally assess the impact of CCAS on OBF using a rabbit model. About 75% stenosis was created by tying the common carotid artery with a plastic mandrel using a nylon suture. The plastic mandrel was gently removed, leaving a ligature. Neurological and behavioral assessments were recorded as the clinical indicator of stroke severity. With laser speckle flowgraphy, the pulse waveform parameters namely mean blur rate (MBR), blowout score (BOS), blowout time (BOT), rising rate, S1-area, falling rate (FR), S2-area, flow acceleration index (FAI), acceleration time index, resistive index (RI) and the difference between the maximum and minimum values of MBR (AC) were assessed in overall, vessel, and tissue regions of the optic nerve head (ONH). Longitudinally, BOS significantly increased until day 19 post-surgery, whereas FAI, RI, and AC significantly decreased. Beyond day 19, BOS, BOT, FR, FAI, RI, and AC significantly decreased. We defined two stages representing impaired vessel conditions, namely the vessel resistance phase, where BOS increases and FAI, RI, and AC decrease, and the vessel elasticity phase where BOS, BOT, FR, FAI, RI and AC decrease. These stages provide information about atherosclerosis, assessable non-invasively through the eye.

Real-time impairment of ocular blood flow (OBF) under common carotid artery stenosis (CCAS) has not been ascertained. We aimed to longitudinally assess the impact of CCAS on OBF using a rabbit model. About 75% stenosis was created by tying the common carotid artery with a plastic mandrel using a nylon suture. The plastic mandrel was gently removed, leaving a ligature. Neurological and behavioral assessments were recorded as the clinical indicator of stroke severity. With laser speckle flowgraphy, the pulse waveform parameters namely mean blur rate (MBR), blowout score (BOS), blowout time (BOT), rising rate, S1-area, falling rate (FR), S2-area, flow acceleration index (FAI), acceleration time index, resistive index (RI) and the difference between the maximum and minimum values of MBR (AC) were assessed in overall, vessel, and tissue regions of the optic nerve head (ONH). Longitudinally, BOS significantly increased until day 19 post-surgery, whereas FAI, RI, and AC significantly decreased. Beyond day 19, BOS, BOT, FR, FAI, RI, and AC significantly decreased. We defined two stages representing impaired vessel conditions, namely the vessel resistance phase, where BOS increases and FAI, RI, and AC decrease, and the vessel elasticity phase where BOS, BOT, FR, FAI, RI and AC decrease. These stages provide information about atherosclerosis, assessable non-invasively through the eye.

In this study, we reported a new technique based on laser speckle flowgraphy to record the ocular blood flow in rabbits under deep anesthesia, and proposed parameters to characterize retinal ischemia. We applied the proposed technique to study the correlation of blood flow between the eyes of normal non-anesthetized animals, and to characterize the occlusion of the internal carotid artery (ICA) and external carotid artery (ECA). We established a correlation in blood flow between the eyes of non-anesthetized animals, and derived two new parameters, namely, the laterality index and vascular perfusion estimate (VPE). Our experimental results from 16 eyes (of 13 New Zealand white rabbits) showed a reduction in ocular blood flow with a significant decrease in the VPE after the occlusion of the ECA (p < 0.001). A low/minimal effect on blood flow was observed with the occlusion of the ICA. In conclusion, we demonstrated a means for the real-time measurement of the ocular blood flow in rabbits under deep anesthesia by using laser speckle flowgraphy and the VPE as an indicator of successful occlusion. The proposed technique might be applicable in quantifying the efficacy of new drugs and interventions for the treatment of retinal ischemia.

In this study, we reported a new technique based on laser speckle flowgraphy to record the ocular blood flow in rabbits under deep anesthesia, and proposed parameters to characterize retinal ischemia. We applied the proposed technique to study the correlation of blood flow between the eyes of normal non-anesthetized animals, and to characterize the occlusion of the internal carotid artery (ICA) and external carotid artery (ECA). We established a correlation in blood flow between the eyes of non-anesthetized animals, and derived two new parameters, namely, the laterality index and vascular perfusion estimate (VPE). Our experimental results from 16 eyes (of 13 New Zealand white rabbits) showed a reduction in ocular blood flow with a significant decrease in the VPE after the occlusion of the ECA (p < 0.001). A low/minimal effect on blood flow was observed with the occlusion of the ICA. In conclusion, we demonstrated a means for the real-time measurement of the ocular blood flow in rabbits under deep anesthesia by using laser speckle flowgraphy and the VPE as an indicator of successful occlusion. The proposed technique might be applicable in quantifying the efficacy of new drugs and interventions for the treatment of retinal ischemia.