BrainGraph

History

BrainGraph was originally developed by Ivo using GML format using a graph display. Then Fotios Konstantinidis developed a HyperTree^? viewer. Ivo's LONI LOVE program has the ability to read and display BrainGraph files in GML format. Then Allan et al wanted it to be in XML format, and Heng made the conversion. Shiva and MBAT can read in XML format of the BrainGraph.

XML Format (.bgx)

As the BrainGraph name implies, it is a direct graph. It contains both nodes and edges. Nodes are individual structures, and edges specify the relationships among the structures. Typically the relationship (and currently the only one) is the anatomical containment relationship.

A simple over view of the file format contains the following:

<braingraph atlas="Swanson1998">
    <label index="20" abbreviation="BR" name="Brain" color="#808080" />
    <label index="22" abbreviation="CH" name="Cerebrum" color="#7fff00" />
    <edge relationship="anatomical containment" head="20" tail="22" />
</braingraph

<braingraph> is the document tag and thus required. atlas is the name of the atlas and required.

<label> is is a node in the graph representing a structure. index is the unique index value of the structure. abbreviation is the abbreviation of the structure and name is the full name of the structure. color field is for viewing purpose and is required.

<edge> describes a relationship between two structures. It is directed, and hence head and tail attributes, which are the index value of the structures of the interest. Currently, the only relationship interpreted is "anatomical containment".

Heng is working on to bring in the following tag:

<meta> which is used to contain meta data, which gives BrainGraph authors the ability to make note on the file. It is in the following format:

<braingraph atlas="Swanson1998">
    <meta>
        <author>Allan</author>
        <date>Jan 1, 2004</date>
        <description>...</description>
        <!-- and other texts in any invented tags -->
    </meta>
    ...
</braingraph>