During the past few months, NITRC has been collecting responses for The State of Neuroimaging Study and we think you will find the results quite interesting. The goal was to broadly understand current practices in neuroimaging and determine the needs of the community in the years to come. There were 60 total respondents and most held a doctorate degree, were junior faculty at an academic institution spending the majority of their time in research.

Information Gathering

• 92% of researchers said they used scientific publications to get neuroimaging information
• 62% said they also find neuroimaging information using blogs and forums, which shows a growth in the informal online conversation around academic topics

Data Discovery/Sharing Practices

• Top three places researchers get their data are: (1) FCP/INDI, (2) OpenNeuro, and (3) their research institution
• 79% use data from public repositories
• 75% acquire their own neuroimaging data
• Data is most often published/shared in journals (Scientific Data, Neuroinformatics, etc.)
• Data storage decisions are influenced primarily by institutional requirements, followed by funding agency requirements and lastly, publication requirements
• NITRC specifically is used by most respondents to find software, and secondly to find data. 

We’re also encouraged that 92% of researchers said they would or have recommended NITRC to a colleague. Thanks to the many respondents, we’re now able to focus our efforts on the things that matter most to you. Speaking of feedback, you may notice our quarterly newsletter start to include a one-click survey towards the bottom. These are going to be site features we are considering to add, and it would be great to know how useful they will be to you before we build them. In fact, there’s one right below!

- Abby Paulson, NITRC Project Coordinator