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Dear Biomag Community, We need your help! We have established a web-portal (it has been updated) for distributing realistic simulated data, as well as empirical data, for the sole purpose of providing the MEG community with common datasets with which groups can test their MEG algorithms (http://cobre.mrn.org/megsim/). Many of you have helped us before (2007) by sending us letters/email indicating a need for such an MEG portal which we sent along with our R21 NIH grant application (a small exploratory grant good for 2 years). We eventually received the grant and now we wish to turn it into a larger grant funded by NIH, expanding our simulations to include EEG. The reviewer comments from the first submission centered on the question of whether anyone would use the simulated datasets generated. A secondary concern was that our simulated data sets were out of date. I am hoping that we can open communication channels between our MEG/EEG community members and discuss what is needed most by the community so that we can deliver something that most members would be happy to use. I am enclosing our “in press” article outlining the web-portal which shows examples of many of the datasets and first pass results for immediate benchmark comparisons. This article was intended to mark the official opening of our web portal. Based on the reviewers concerns, we have some specific brief questions we hope you will take a couple of minutes to answer: 1. Is there a community need for these shared datasets? 2. Is it helpful to have basic sensory simulations (visual, auditory, somatosensory), in addition to more complex simulations? These datasets represent easier cases to analyze in most situations. 3. Is it helpful to construct realistic simulated data reflecting functional connectivity which would include unique single-trials and continuous data? 3. Is it useful to have overall analyses conducted on the outcome of different algorithms so we can directly compare performance across algorithms? 4. Is it useful to construct a large empirical cognitive dataset (n=25), emphasizing functional connectivity, that includes DTI, neuropsychological test measures, task performance measures, to share with the community (for exploratory connectivity analyses)? 5. Should we develop an external committee to help set guidelines for the creation of datasets and maintenance of the web-portal? 6. If a simulation for your project was available, would you use it rather than generating your own simulations (assuming that the data format was compatible with your software? 7. What other needs do you envision for the success of a community web-portal containing simulated and empirical datasets? We are planning on submitting a revised grant application around Dec 1 2011. If you would like to help us please send a letter to me at the address below (or attach a letter to email—one reviewer didn’t appreciate 1- or 2- line sentences sent via email). I am sending this to the Biomag list. If there are others who should receive it, but are not on the Biomag list, please forward this message to them. Thank you! Sincerely, Cheryl J. Aine, PhD Professor, Department of Radiology MSC10 5530 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131 505 272-5557