BrainMap Software
BrainMap’s client programs are written in the Java programming language that may run under PC, Macintosh, and UNIX operating systems. There are 3 different applications in the BrainMap software suite; please click on the link below for more information:
- Sleuth: database searches and Talairach coordinate plotting (this application requires a username and password)
- GingerALE: performs meta-analyses via the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) method; also converts coordinates between MNI and Talairach spaces using icbm2tal
- Scribe: database entry of published functional neuroimaging papers with coordinate results
Announcements - August 2011
The BrainMap Team is proud to announce the release of new versions of Scribe, Sleuth, and GingerALE. With these updates, we are now providing access to our VBM database (see below). In addition, due to recent software and hardware upgrades, your searches will be executed more rapidly. In GingerALE, we are pleased to announce that we are releasing a new meta-analytic subtraction algorithm, which was quite popular in versions 1.x. Please see the user manuals for more information on all of our new features.
Latest Software Builds
The most recent updates to our applications (including new algorithms) can be found on our builds page. But please remember, these are unreleased alpha versions that haven't been fully tested for bugs. If you experience any errors with these apps, please let us know and continue to use the public-release version.
Functional and VBM Databases
BrainMap was initially developed as a database for functional neuroimaging studies reporting brain activation patterns as tabular-formatted 3D stereotactic coordinates. Metadata describing the experimental design and data processing pipeline for each study are manually extracted from each publication, along with the coordinates. Recently, the BrainMap team initiated efforts to expand into archiving structural neuroimaging data, specifically in the form of coordinates extracted from voxel-based morphometry studies. Following multiple years of data entry, as well as database, servlet, and software programming and development, the BrainMap VBM database has been released to the public and is now live.
Although the functional and VBM studies in BrainMap are archived in separate Oracle databases, they can both be accessed using the software described above. After launching the Scribe applications, users are asked to choose if they are coding a paper for the functional or VBM database; after selection, the interface is updated accordingly. In the Sleuth application, there is a radio button in the main search window where users designate their choice of database. Search results are kept separate to avoid conflation of functional and structural neuroimaging results.
Please note that BrainMapWeb only searches the functional database, not the VBM database.
