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  • Jan. 28, 2026 -

    AABC Release 2 of more longitudinal HCP-Aging & AABC Data 
    The Aging Adult Brain Connectome (AABC) consortium is pleased to announce its second release of imaging and non-imaging phenotypic data on the ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA platform. AABC Release 2 includes 632 additional sessions collected on participants from targeted groups newly recruited for AABC and more longitudinal visit data and followups (up to visit 4) from HCP-Aging (HCA) participants. It is inclusive of the previous AABC 1 Release.
     
    AABC is a longitudinal follow-on study to the HCA study of typically aging participants ages 36-90+. AABC has recruited ~950 participants (legacy HCA and new) for two additional longitudinal visits, collecting up to four timepoints per participant to generate within-participant brain trajectories over spans of up to 10 years, enabling examination of vulnerability and resilience factors related to cognitive decline.
    AABC Release 2 includes cross-sectional (V1) and longitudinal (V2, V3, V4) 3T MR scans and non-imaging phenotypic data from 1396 typically aging adults (ages 36-90+) in the HCP-Aging and AABC projects. 

    This includes data for 1396 V1, 915 V2, 471 V3, and 96 V4 sessions (total = 2878). It includes preprocessed and unprocessed imaging data for all included modalities (structural, high-res hippocampal T2 [unprocessed only], resting state fMRI, task fMRI, diffusion, and ASL) from 1390 participants in 2789 imaging visits. It also contains non-imaging data collected over a broad range of domains at imaging visits and in remote follow up surveys (non-imaging events). 
     
    Release 2 Highlights:
    *Preprocessed and unprocessed structural MRI, resting state fMRI, task fMRI, diffusion MRI, ASL, and high-res hippocampal T2 [unprocessed only] data in modality-specific "HCP package" datasets downloadable from BALSA. Most users should access Preprocessed Recommended fMRI data that have been cleaned of spatially and temporally specific structured noise and precisely aligned across subjects by multimodal cortical surface registration (MSMAll) using HCP pipelines that have been developed specifically for HCP-style data.
    *3T Multi-modal Imaging Derived Phenotypes (IDPs) for released participant sessions available in CSV (zip archives in IDPs tab) and Connectome Workbench-compatible CIFTI imaging package formats.
    *7 T Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) brain metabolite data are available for 282 participant visits.
    *Non-imaging behavioral and biomeasure data available for released participant sessions and follow up events. ​
        *Core Variables, high interest primary variables and summary scores, including MRS brain metabolites, can be viewed and filtered in the BALSA UI (use Column Selector to add, Export CSV to download all Core Variables or selected subset).
        *>3,000 Extended (XL) variables, including item-level and follow up event variables, for all participant events available in a comprehensive spreadsheet. See Data Dictionary for descriptions of included variables.
        *NIH Toolbox raw and score data for in-person visits are available as spreadsheets/zip archive.
    *Visualization instructions and HCA1798 group average template data for visualizing HCP pipelines output, including IDPs, in Connectome Workbench wb_view.

    Get Access and Download the data: Get started by Registering for BALSA, click on the “ConnectomeDB” tab, and agree to the AABC Data Use Terms. An academic, non-profit, or government email address is required to agree to the AABC Data Use Terms and access the data.
     
    To download imaging data, you must 1) install Aspera Connect (scroll down to “IBM Aspera client-deployed software” to find Aspera Connect download links) and 2) an Aspera Connect plugin for your browser (available from Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.). Set Preferences>Transfers in Aspera Connect to a directory with sufficient space for large downloads.
     
    Use the Column Selector and Export CSV to view, filter on, and download all or subsets of Core Variables for selected subjects. To download the full non-imaging data, click the Files tab and Download under AABC_Release2_Non-imaging_Data-XL.csv. 
     
    Join the Community. If you are actively using HCP data and tools, we encourage you to join and be active in the HCP-Users Google group, so that you can tune in to technical discussions on issues that may be of interest. Once you have joined (posts from nonmembers are moderated to control spam), post questions to hcp-users@humanconnectome.org.  
     
    Share your Analyses. As you work with AABC data and prepare your work for publication, we encourage you to use Connectome Workbench to prepare your figures as scenes and upload your scenes as a BALSA dataset that can be linked from your publication.
     
    Stay Tuned! In coming months, we will be working on improvements to ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA to enable additional ways to transfer data via command line and other transfer services we are exploring. We will announce updates on the HCP-Users group!
  • Dec. 01, 2025 -

    Aspera downloads from ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA are operational again!

    Aspera server downloading from ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA are now back online after an extended major filesystem outage affecting all imaging package and larger project file archive downloads. We will update if there are any other issues. Please report any issues to our technical staff or curators.
  • Nov. 17, 2025 -

    Updated: Major filesystem outage affecting all Aspera downloads from ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA: Current fix ETA Dec 1

    We are currently experiencing a major filesystem outage that is affecting all downloads from BALSA that require the Aspera server which includes all imaging package and larger project file archive downloads from ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA. Downloads of non-imaging data, smaller project files, and BALSA studies/reference datasets are unaffected.

    Updated: Due to the extent of the issues we are not expecting Aspera downloads to be back up until next Monday December 1. We apologize for the inconvenience this is causing. We will update when downloads are working again.
  • Oct. 28, 2025 -

    AABC Release 1 of HCP-Aging & AABC Data
    The Aging Adult Brain Connectome (AABC) consortium is pleased to announce its initial release of imaging and non-imaging phenotypic data on the ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA platform. This includes data for all HCP-Aging (HCA) participants and visits, plus an initial set of AABC visits.

    AABC is a longitudinal follow-on study to the HCA study of healthy participants ages 36-90+. AABC is recruiting 1000 participants (legacy HCA and new) for two additional longitudinal visits, collecting up to four timepoints per participant to generate within-participant brain trajectories over spans of up to 10 years, enabling examination of vulnerability and resilience factors related to cognitive decline.

    AABC Release 1 includes cross-sectional (V1) and longitudinal (V2, V3) 3T MR scans and non-imaging data from 1248 healthy older adults (ages 36-90+) in the HCP-Aging and AABC projects. It includes multi-modal preprocessed and unprocessed imaging data from 1248 participants across 2214 imaging visits (many subjects have data from more than one visit). It also contains non-imaging data collected over a broad range of domains for 1248 V1, 762 V2, and 236 V3 (2246 total) in-person visits and remote follow up surveys (non-imaging events). See session breakdowns by study and visit/event.

    7T Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) data are available for 138 participants. Multi-modal Imaging Derived Phenotypes (IDPs) are available for participants with imaging data.

    Release 1 Highlights:
    *Preprocessed and unprocessed structural MRI, resting state fMRI, task fMRI, diffusion MRI, and ASL data in modality-specific "HCP package" datasets downloadable from BALSA (see below). Most users should access Preprocessed Recommended fMRI data that have been cleaned of spatially and temporally specific structured noise and precisely aligned across subjects by multimodal cortical surface registration (MSMAll).
    *3T Multi-modal Imaging Derived Phenotypes (IDPs) for released participant sessions available in CSV (zip archives in IDPs tab) and Connectome Workbench-compatible CIFTI imaging package formats.
    *7T Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) brain metabolite data are available for 138 participants.
    *Non-imaging behavioral and biomeasure data available for released participant sessions and follow up events. ​
         *Core Variables, high interest primary variables and summary scores, including MRS brain metabolites, can be viewed and filtered in the BALSA UI (use Column Selector to add, Export CSV to download).
         *>3,000 Extended variables, including item-level and follow up event variables, for all participant events available in a comprehensive spreadsheet.
         *NIH Toolbox raw and score data for in-person visits are available as spreadsheets/zip archive.
    *Visualization instructions and HCA1798 group average template data for visualizing HCP pipelines output, including IDPs, in Connectome Workbench wb_view.

    Get Access and Download the data: Get started by Registering for BALSA, click on the “ConnectomeDB” tab, and agree to the AABC Data Use Terms. An academic, non-profit, or government email address is required to agree to the AABC Data Use Terms and access the data.

    To download imaging data, you must 1) install Aspera Connect (scroll down to “IBM Aspera client-deployed software” to find Aspera Connect download links) and 2) an Aspera Connect plugin for your browser (available from Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.). Set Preferences>Transfers in Aspera Connect to a directory with sufficient space for large downloads.

    To download the full non-imaging data, click the Files tab and Download under AABC_Release1_Non-imaging_Data-XL.csv. Use the Column Selector and Export CSV to view, filter on, and download all or subsets of Core Variables for selected subjects.

    Join the Community. If you are actively using HCP data and tools, we encourage you to join and be active in the HCP-Users Google group, so that you can tune in to technical discussions on issues that may be of interest. Once you have joined (posts from nonmembers are moderated to control spam), post questions to hcp-users@humanconnectome.org.  

    Stay Tuned! In addition to this release, we are actively preparing AABC Release 2 to be made public soon. It will include 600+ more participant session data and other minor updates. We will announce Release 2 on the HCP-Users group, so yet another reason to join!
  • Oct. 01, 2025 -

    ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA replaces db.humanconnectome.org
    The Human Connectome Project's (HCP) original platform for sharing HCP-Young Adult data, ConnectomeDB (db.humanconnectome.org), has been taken down as of October 1, 2025. To access HCP-YA data, login to BALSA, click on the ConnectomeDB tab, and agree to the HCP Open access Data Use Terms.
  • Aug. 12, 2025 -

    HCP-Young Adult 2025 Release
    Announcing the release of updated 3T, 7T, and Retest subjects imaging data from the HCP-Young Adult project on a our new platform, "ConnectomeDB powered by BALSA" (see ConnectomeDB tab).

    How have HCP-YA data changed?
    • Updated processing on previously released 3T, 7T, and Retest subjects to include:
         o Spin-echo based ("SEBASED") intensity bias field correction of all the fMRI data,
         o Elimination of the regression of movement regressors as a step in the fMRI data cleaning (see Glasser et al., 2019 Neuroimage).
         o Addition of multi-run FIX for the 3T task fMRI data.
         o Addition of Reclean (improvements to spatial ICA) and Temporal ICA pipelines and processed output for all 3T and 7T fMRI data.
         o Due to these updates, data from this 2025 Release should not be mixed with data from the previous "S1200" Release (from 2017).

    • Data are processed and repackaged to match packages released for the HCP Lifespan projects. The new packages are significantly different than the ones currently available on ConnectomeDB. The new data has not been added to Amazon S3 but may be in future.

    • Processed data are available for 1071 subjects (45 retest subjects) without processing errors and with at least one rfMRI run to enable MSMAll registration. Unprocessed data are available for all subjects with imaging data (1113 subjects).

    • Directory structure of unzipped data is unchanged.

    • Non-imaging data are unchanged. Restricted data are available to those approved for access.

    How do I get access to the new release?
    • Register for a BALSA account, and log in. While HCP-YA does not require it, we recommend registering with an institutional email to facilitate access to future datasets.

    • Click on the ConnectomeDB tab, then on the Data Use Terms button under HCP-Young Adult 2025.

    • Read and agree to the Terms.

    • Click on HCP-Young Adult 2025 to view subject data, filter, and queue data for download (requires Aspera Connect plugin for your browser).

    Join the Community
    If you are actively using HCP data and tools, we encourage you to join and be active in the HCP-Users Google group, so that you can tune in to technical discussions on issues that may be of interest. Once you have joined (posts from nonmembers are moderated to control spam), post questions to hcp-users@humanconnectome.org.
  • May. 12, 2023 -

    New features for BALSA have been released!:

    *user controlled links to documentation files can now be displayed on the study page
    *shareable viewer link codes that users can email to those they want to have viewer access to their study
    *a fix to prevent scene descriptions ending prematurely if they contain a '<' character
    *faster automatic messages from BALSA registration
    *increased security features
  • May. 17, 2022 -

    BALSA has transitioned to a new authentication system backend for handling logins. Due to the difference in encryption, we cannot simply transfer existing passwords for current users. BALSA account holders have been sent an email requesting a one-time password reset. Doing this proactively will avoid a potentially confusing ‘Login failed’ on the next attempt at a BALSA login. To reset your password, go to balsa.wustl.edu, click "login", then "forgotten password", and type in your username. You will immediately receive an email with a password reset link.

    If you are new to BALSA, you may register for an account and agree to any data use terms. Under the new authentication system, agreement to the HCP Open Access Data Use Terms in ConnectomeDB are not transferred to BALSA as the accounts in the two platforms are now separate.
  • Aug. 23, 2021 -

    Updates to BALSA have been released!  

    New Features:
    *an updated, consistent style has been applied to all BALSA pages
    *upgraded table display, sorting, filtering, and searching
    *improved reCAPTCHA ID function
  • Sep. 18, 2020 -

    BALSA has been updated to include versioning, which allows study owners to track changes to their shared scene data from the study page and continue to edit a working version of the dataset even when the study is in public, approved, or submitted status. All instructions on the Submit Data to BALSA pages have been updated as well.
  • Jun. 08, 2019 -

    BALSA is at 2019 OHBM in Rome June 9-13! Come see BALSA study creation, upload, and curation in action at Table Top #1 (next to the bar)! Learn about creating scenes in Connectome Workbench, the process of contributing your own studies for public sharing or private collaboration, and publicizing your study and associated publication.
  • May. 24, 2018 -

    BALSA is now accepting user-submitted study data! Click the button labelled 'About Data Submission' to get started.
  • Jul. 20, 2016 -

    Nature study now available in BALSA: A Multi-modal Parcellation of Human Cerebral Cortex!

    Major results by Human Connectome Project (https://www.humanconnectome.org/) investigators using HCP data and methods were published in Nature July 20, 2016.

    The study, A multi-modal parcellation of human cerebral cortex, led by Matthew Glasser and David Van Essen of Washington University, used information derived from structural and functional MRI data collected on 210 HCP subjects to create a new 180 region per hemisphere map of the cerebral cortex of the human brain, including 97 new areas not previously reported using other approaches. The new cortical map is being referred to as HCP Multimodal parcellation, version 1 (HCP_MMP1.0), as updated versions are expected as more detailed data becomes available in future.

    The multimodal surface matching algorithm pioneered by HCP investigators at Oxford U was key in precisely aligning the individual brains before analysis. The maps were then applied to individuals from an independent set of 210 HCP subjects using a machine-learning classifier to recognize the multi-modal ‘fingerprint’ of each cortical area.

    The parcellation and Connectome Workbench scenes for each of the main article and supplemental figures are being shared in BALSA: https://balsa.wustl.edu/study/show/RVVG

    The parcellation for use as a reference is most easily accessed in the Glasser_et_al_2016_HCP_MMP1.0_5_StudyDataset.scene (https://balsa.wustl.edu/sceneFile/show/L731) study dataset.
  • Jun. 22, 2016 -

    Journal of Neuroscience study added: Using Diffusion Tractography to Predict Cortical Connection Strength and Distance: A quantitative comparison with Tracers in the Monkey

    This study compares high resolution connectivity derived from diffusion tractography with
    published results using neuroanatomical tracers.  The authors found the correlation of tractography’s quantitatively estimated connection strengths versus tracer to be twice that of a previous study. Using a novel method for calculating interareal cortical distances, they showed that tractography based estimates of connection strength have useful predictive power beyond just interareal separation.
  • Mar. 25, 2016 -

    BALSA Alpha now live!