How to include information about different group/populations within a single BIDS dataset using MNE-BIDS?

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1

Hi all,

I am trying to determine the best way to represent multiple groups within my datasets. For example, I have a study with a control and patient group. What is the best way to represent these two groups (control, patient), using BIDS and MNE-BIDS?

Ideally the identification of the two groups would be accesible both when browsing the files, and also this information would be accessible by the information returned by MNE-BIDS. I would like to use this group level information for downstream statistical analysis, for example to compare the magnitiude of brain response between the two groups. I would like to avoid simply parsing a custom subject identifier, and have a dedicated field if possible. This way I can create a standardised workflow in to the second level stats for MNE-NIRS.

So I have the following specific questions.

  1. Is there a field in mne.info that should be used to identify participant groups?

  2. Is there a standard way to represent different participants groups like this in BIDS?
    I have tried the following approaches

    1. Create an extra column in the participants.tsv file called group.
    2. Code the group in to the subject name. E.g., sub-p01, sub-p02, sub-c01, sub-c02.
      I could forsee this becoming troublesome as researchers may use different variations like sub-02p, sub-control1
    3. Store the data as two different BIDS datasets. This makes scripting and automation difficult.

  3. Does MNE-BIDS already support a way to return group information? (appologies if I missed this when reading the API)

So how do other people store group data and interact with MNE-BIDS? If there isn’t code for this yet I am happy to contribute some PRs.

Cheers,
Rob

2

hi,

just sharing my thoughts

I would have used the participants.tsv to put this info and used a dataframe
to read it in.

unfortunately the info[‘subject_info’] is very strict about what it can contain.

my 2c
Alex

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