BredeQuery: Coordinate-Based Meta-analytic Search of Neuroscientific Literature from the SPM Environment

Large amounts of neuroimaging studies are collected and have changed our view on human brain function. By integrating multiple studies in meta- analysis a more complete picture is emerging. Brain locations are usually reported as coordinates with reference to a specific brain atlas, thus some of the databases offer so-called coordinate-based searching to the users (e.g. Brede, BrainMap). For such search, the publications, which relate to the brain locations represented by the user coordinates, are retrieved. We present BredeQuery – a plugin for the widely used SPM data analytic pipeline. BredeQuery offers a direct link from SPM to the Brede Database coordinate-based search engine. BredeQuery is able to ‘grab’ brain location coordinates from the SPM windows and enter them as a query for the Brede Database. Moreover, results of the query can be displayed in a MATLAB window and/or exported directly to some popular bibliographic file formats (BibTeX, Reference Manager, etc).