title: Handling Metadata in a Neurophysiology Laboratory.
abstract: To date, non-reproducibility of neurophysiological research is a matter of intense discussion in the scientific community. A crucial component to enhance reproducibility is to comprehensively collect and store metadata, that is, all information about the experiment, the data, and the applied preprocessing steps on the data, such that they can be accessed and shared in a consistent and simple manner. However, the complexity of experiments, the highly specialized analysis workflows and a lack of knowledge on how to make use of supporting software tools often overburden researchers to perform such a detailed documentation. For this reason, the collected metadata are often incomplete, incomprehensible for outsiders or ambiguous. Based on our research experience in dealing with diverse datasets, we here provide conceptual and technical guidance to overcome the challenges associated with the collection, organization, and storage of metadata in a neurophysiology laboratory. Through the concrete example of managing the metadata of a complex experiment that yields multi-channel recordings from monkeys performing a behavioral motor task, we practically demonstrate the implementation of these approaches and solutions with the intention that they may be generalized to other projects. Moreover, we detail five use cases that demonstrate the resulting benefits of constructing a well-organized metadata collection when processing or analyzing the recorded data, in particular when these are shared between laboratories in a modern scientific collaboration. Finally, we suggest an adaptable workflow to accumulate, structure and store metadata from different sources using, by way of example, the odML metadata framework.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6), Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6), JARA BRAIN Institute I, Jülich Research Centre Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Lyuba
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zehl
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'informatique Fondamentale, UMR 7279, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille UniversitéMarseille, France; Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, UMR 7289, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille UniversitéMarseille, France.
authors.forename: Florent
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jaillet
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology II, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Martinsried, Germany.
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stoewer
authors.affiliation: Institut for Neurobiology, Abteilung Neuroethologie, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Grewe
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology II, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Martinsried, Germany.
authors.forename: Andrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sobolev
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology II, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Martinsried, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wachtler
authors.affiliation: Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, UMR 7289, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille Université Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Thomas G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Brochier
authors.affiliation: Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, UMR 7289, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille UniversitéMarseille, France; Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6), Jülich Research CentreJülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Riehle
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6), Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6), JARA BRAIN Institute I, Jülich Research Centre Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Denker
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6), Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6), JARA BRAIN Institute I, Jülich Research CentreJülich, Germany; Theoretical Systems Neurobiology, RWTH Aachen UniversityAachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Sonja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grün
keywords: analysis workflow; data sharing; electrophysiology; metadata management; odML; reproducibility