About the CCF (CCF Overview)

About the Connectome Coordination Facility

Research into the Human Connectome has exploded since the original Human Connectome Project grants were awarded by the NIH in 2011. Over the next decade, we expect to see dozens of new projects at institutions around the world researching aspects of how age, growth, disease, and other factors can affect the ever-changing connections in the human brain.

The Connectome Coordination Facility (CCF) has been chartered to help coordinate these myriad research projects, harmonize their data, and facilitate the distribution and dissemination of results.

The CCF has three primary aims:

  1. Run a “data acquisition help desk,” to facilitate in the collection of HCP-style data for optimal comparability. 
  2. Maintain and expand the HCP informatics infrastructure, to host and distribute connectome data from multiple studies on ConnectomeDB and Amazon Web Services.
  3. Serve as a “harmonization center,” to make data from multiple studies and institutions as comparable as possible.

Learn more about how we the services we offer to HCP studies: CCF Services Overview | CCF Staff.


CCF Studies

All CCF Studies are organized under three main aims: studying the healthy young adult brain, studying the brain as it relates to growth and aging, and studying the brain as it relates to disease.

HCP Young Adult 1200

The initial Human Connectome Project dataset of 1200 healthy young adult sibships will continue to be supported. The CCF will distribute image data across multiple imaging modalities, as well as behavioral, demographic, and individual difference data. In addition, the CCF will help disseminate HCP-style data acquisition protocols to other studies to maximize comparability.

HCP Lifespan Studies

The CCF will directly support multiple Lifespan studies, and offer indirect support to others via the dissemination of HCP-style protocols:

  • HCP Lifespan Babies (Age 0-5)
  • HCP Lifespan Children (Age 5-21)
  • HCP Lifespan Adults (Age 36-100)
  • Developing HCP (Prenatal & Neonatal)
  • Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development -- Protocols only

Connectomes Related to Disease Studies

This series of studies has been funded by the National Institutes of Health to apply HCP-style data collection toward subject cohorts at risk for or suffering from diseases or disorders affecting the brain. These studies include:

  • Amish Connectome Mental Illness - University of Maryland. PIs: Elliot Hong, Peter Kochunov
  • Epilepsy Connectome Project - Medical College of Wisconsin. PIs: Jeffrey Binder, Beth Meyerand
  • Anxiety and Depression in Teenagers - Massachusetts Institute of Technology. PIs: Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, John Gabrieli
  • The Structural and Functional Connectome Across Alzheimer's Disease Subtypes - University of Southern California. PI: John Ringman
  • Human Connectomes for Low Vision, Blindness, Sight Restoration - University of Southern California & University of Pennsylvania. PIs: Bosco Tjan, Geoffrey Aguirre

Further disease-related connectome studies to be centered at the following institutions:

  • Medical College of Wisconsin
  • University of Alabama-Birmingham
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Pittsburgh University•Brigham and Women's Hospital