Offering to Share: How to Put Heads Together in Autism Neuroimaging

Matthew K. Belmonte, John C. Mazziotta, Nancy J. Minshew, Alan C. Evans, Eric Courchesne, Stephen R. Dager, Susan Y. Bookheimer, Elizabeth H. Aylward, David G. Amaral, Rita M. Cantor, Diane C. Chugani, Anders M. Dale, Christos Davatzikos, Guido Gerig, Martha R. Herbert, Janet E. Lainhart, Declan G. Murphy, Joseph Piven, Allan L. Reiss, Robert T. Schultz, Thomas A. Zeffiro, Susan Levi-Pearl, Clara Lajonchere, Sophia A. Colamarino

Data sharing in autism neuroimaging presents scientific, technical, and social obstacles. We outline the desiderata for a data-sharing scheme that combines imaging with other measures of phenotype and with genetics, defines requirements for comparability of derived data and recommendations for raw data, outlines a core protocol including multispectral structural and diffusion-tensor imaging and optional extensions, provides for the collection of prospective, confound-free normative data, and extends sharing and collaborative development not only to data but to the analytical tools and methods applied to these data. A theme in these requirements is the need to preserve creative approaches and risk-taking within individual laboratories at the same time as common standards are provided for these laboratories to build on.