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Ontario Brain Institute (OBI)

Overview

The Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) is a provincially funded, not-for-profit research organisation established in 2010 to maximise the impact of neuroscience research in Ontario. It funds and coordinates five Integrated Discovery Programs (IDPs) spanning cerebral palsy, depression, concussion, neurodevelopmental disorders, and youth mental health. OBI’s central contribution to open neuroscience is Brain-CODE, a large-scale neuroinformatics platform for the collection, curation, federation, and sharing of multimodal brain research data. OBI is also a founding sponsor of CONP.

Integrated Discovery Programs

OBI’s five IDPs collect standardised multimodal data (clinical, neuroimaging, genetic, molecular, behavioural) using Common Data Elements (CDEs) across brain disorders, enabling cross-disorder comparisons:

ProgramDomain
Cerebral Palsyneurodevelopmental
Depressionpsychiatric
Concussionneurotrauma
Neurodevelopmental Disordersneurodevelopmental
Youth Mental Healthpsychiatric

All IDP data is stored and managed on Brain-CODE, with standardised consent language enabling de-identified data sharing with external researchers.

Open Science Leadership

FAIR Data Implementation

OBI has implemented FAIR-aligned data sharing since Brain-CODE’s inception in 2012, documented in a 2023 paper in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics.

CONP Founding Sponsorship

OBI is a founding sponsor of CONP. All Brain-CODE data releases are registered on the searchable CONP data portal, described with a customised DATS (Data Tags Suite) metadata model.

Centre for Analytics

Established in 2023, the Centre for Analytics is powered by Brain-CODE and provides a platform for neuroanalytics technologies, skills development, and industry innovation.

Privacy by Design

Brain-CODE was designed with Privacy-by-Design principles, including Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage (PPRL) for linking Brain-CODE records with external health administrative data.

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