Research advancements in neuroscience entail the production of a substantial amount of data requiring interpretation, analysis, and integration. The complexity and diversity of neuroscience data necessitate the development of specialized databases and associated standards and protocols. NeuroMorpho.Org is an online repository of over one hundred thousand digitally reconstructed neurons and glia shared by hundreds of laboratories worldwide. Every entry of this public resource is associated with essential metadata describing animal species, anatomical region, cell type, experimental condition, and additional information relevant to contextualize the morphological content. Until recently, the lack of a user-friendly, structured metadata annotation system relying on standardized terminologies constituted a major hindrance in this effort, limiting the data release pace. Over the past 2 years, we have transitioned the original spreadsheet-based metadata annotation system of NeuroMorpho.Org to a custom-developed, robust, web-based framework for extracting, structuring, and managing neuroscience information. Here we release the metadata portal publicly and explain its functionality to enable usage by data contributors. This framework facilitates metadata annotation, improves terminology management, and accelerates data sharing. Moreover, its open-source development provides the opportunity of adapting and extending the code base to other related research projects with similar requirements. This metadata portal is a beneficial web companion to NeuroMorpho.Org which saves time, reduces errors, and aims to minimize the barrier for direct knowledge sharing by domain experts. The underlying framework can be progressively augmented with the integration of increasingly autonomous machine intelligence components.

中文翻译：

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应用于神经元形态数字重建的神经科学元数据管理开源框架


神经科学研究的进步需要产生大量需要解释、分析和整合的数据。神经科学数据的复杂性和多样性需要开发专门的数据库以及相关的标准和协议。 NeuroMorpho.Org 是一个在线存储库，包含超过十万个数字重建的神经元和神经胶质细胞，由全球数百个实验室共享。该公共资源的每个条目都与描述动物物种、解剖区域、细胞类型、实验条件以及与形态内容背景相关的其他信息的基本元数据相关联。直到最近，缺乏依赖标准化术语的用户友好的结构化元数据注释系统构成了这项工作的主要障碍，限制了数据发布速度。在过去的两年里，我们已经将 NeuroMorpho.Org 最初基于电子表格的元数据注释系统转变为定制开发的、强大的、基于网络的框架，用于提取、构建和管理神经科学信息。在这里，我们公开发布元数据门户并解释其功能以供数据贡献者使用。该框架有利于元数据注释、改进术语管理并加速数据共享。此外，其开源开发提供了将代码库改编和扩展至具有类似要求的其他相关研究项目的机会。该元数据门户是 NeuroMorpho.Org 的有益网络伴侣，它可以节省时间、减少错误，并旨在最大限度地减少领域专家直接共享知识的障碍。 通过集成日益自主的机器智能组件，可以逐步增强底层框架。