# Pan-Neurotrauma Data Commons

> **NIH NIH U24** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2022 · $738,472

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Trauma to the central nervous system (CNS: spinal cord and brain) together affect more than 2.5 million people
per year in the US, with economic costs of $80 billion in healthcare and loss-of-productivity. Yet, the precise
pathophysiological processes impairing recovery remain poorly understood. This lack of knowledge is
exacerbated by poor reproducibility of findings in animal models and limits translation of therapeutics across
species and into humans. Part of the problem is that neurotrauma is intrinsically complex, involving
heterogeneous damage to the central nervous system (CNS), by far the most complex organ system in the body.
This results in a multifaceted CNS syndrome reflected across heterogeneous endpoints and multiple scales of
analysis. Multi-scale heterogeneity makes traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI) difficult to
understand using traditional analytical approaches that focus on a single endpoint for testing therapeutic efficacy.
Single endpoint-testing provides a narrow window into the complex system of changes that describe SCI and
TBI. Understanding these disorders involves managing datasets that include high volume anatomy data, high
velocity physiology decision-support data, the high variety functional/behavioral data, and assessing correlations
among these endpoints. In this sense, neurotrauma is fundamentally a data management problem that involves
the classic ‘3Vs of big data’ (volume, velocity, variety). Of these, variety is perhaps the greatest data challenge
in neurotrauma research for reproducibility in basic discovery, cross-species translation, and ultimately clinical
implementation. For the proposed Data Repositories Cooperative Agreement (U24) we will build on our prior
work managing data variety in the Open Data Commons for SCI (odc-sci.org) and TBI (odc-tbi.org) to make
neurotrauma data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). The milestone-driven aims will: 1)
further develop and harden our data lifecycle management system with end-to-end data version control and
provenance tracking, data certification, and data citation; 2) develop in-cloud data dashboards and visualizations
to monitor data quality and to promote data reuse, exploration, and hypothesis generation; 3) establish a pan-
neurotrauma (PANORAUMA) data commons that brings together separate data assets currently supported by
our multi-PI (MPI) team by aligning a patchwork of governance structures and policies. The goal of the proposed
project is to develop a pooled repository for preclinical discovery, reproducibility testing, and translational
discovery both within and across neurotrauma types. Our team is well-positioned to execute this project given
that we developed some of the largest multicenter, multispecies neurotrauma data repositories of neurotrauma
to-date (N>10,000 subjects 20,000 curated variables); the Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF); data
terminologies and standards ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10478255
- **Project number:** 5U24NS122732-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** ADAM R FERGUSON
- **Activity code:** U24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $738,472
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-01 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10478255

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10478255, Pan-Neurotrauma Data Commons (5U24NS122732-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10478255. Licensed CC0.

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