HCP Releases Initial MEG Dataset

Author: Jenn Elam

Published: Mar 04, 2014

Study: HCP Young Adult

The Human Connectome Project (HCP) WU-Minn consortium is pleased to announce our initial release of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data.

An example activation pattern from an MEG cortical sheet

What’s in the HCP MEG Initial (MEG1) data release? The MEG1 data include 10 complete, high quality datasets from 14 healthy adults collected at rest (rMEG) and during 3 tasks (tMEG) that measure sensory, motor, and cognitive task performance. For 3 subjects in this MEG release, data has already been released for the other modalities in the HCP protocol (T1w and T2w MRI, rfMRI, tfMRI, dMRI, and behavioral measures). MRI and behavioral measures for the remaining 11 subjects will be released as part of the upcoming HCP 500 Subjects Release scheduled for late spring 2014.

The MEG1 release includes:

raw, unprocessed MEG data in 4D Neuroimaging format
co-registration information (in the form of transformation matrices) that allow coordinate transformations between individual subject MEG coordinate systems and the MNI coordinate system
volume conduction model of the head (in MATLAB format)
regular 3-D source models (in MATLAB format)
E-Prime log files (tab-delimited and as Excel spreadsheets)
lists of bad channels and bad segments
sets of independent components (each comprising the time course and the sensor map) together with the related classification output
cleaned channel-level processed data aligned to stimulus and response onsets (for the task data) or segmented in short pieces (2 sec epochs for the resting state data)
averaged event-related fields and time-frequency estimates of power (for the task data)
averaged power spectra (for the resting state data)

Download MEG analysis software. Also available for download and use are pipeline scripts specifically written for analyzing HCP MEG data, collectively called “megconnectome software version 1.0”, and the FieldTrip MATLAB toolbox for MEG and EEG analysis. See http://humanconnectome.org/documentation/MEG1/meg-pipeline.html for more information and to download the software.

Access MEG1 data on the HCP website. Learn about and download the HCP MEG1 dataset (~300GB of data!) via the ConnectomeDB database. Most HCP image and behavioral data is openly accessible to investigators worldwide who register and accept a limited set of Open Access Data Use Terms.

Want more information? Check out the HCP MEG1 Data Release Reference Manual for a comprehensive guide that includes details on scanning protocols, processing pipelines, and information that will help users obtain and analyze the Q3 data.

If you are actively using HCP data and tools, we encourage you to join and be active in the hcp-users discussion group, so that you can tune in to technical discussions on issues that may be of interest.

Thanks again for your interest in the HCP. Please send us your questions and comments anytime to info@humanconnectome.org.