NSD graphic
News:
 The Natural Scenes Dataset (NSD) is a large-scale fMRI dataset conducted at ultra-high-field (7T) strength at the Center of Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) at the University of Minnesota. The dataset consists of whole-brain, high-resolution (1.8-mm isotropic, 1.6-s sampling rate) fMRI measurements of 8 healthy adult subjects while they viewed thousands of color natural scenes over the course of 30–40 scan sessions. While viewing these images, subjects were engaged in a continuous recognition task in which they reported whether they had seen each given image at any point in the experiment. These data constitute a massive benchmark dataset for computational models of visual representation and cognition, and can support a wide range of scientific inquiry.

 For a formal description of the dataset, please see the NSD data paper:
Allen, E.J., St-Yves, G., Wu, Y., Breedlove, J.L., Prince, J.S., Dowdle, L.T., Nau, M., Caron, B., Pestilli, F., Charest, I., Hutchinson, J.B., Naselaris, T.*, Kay, K.* A massive 7T fMRI dataset to bridge cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Nature Neuroscience (2021).
For a formal description of the NSD synthetic addition, please see the NSD synthetic paper:
Gifford, A.T., Cichy, R.M., Naselaris, T., Kay, K. A 7T fMRI dataset of synthetic images for out-of-distribution modeling of vision. arXiv (2025).
In addition, here is a brief (20 min) talk presenting the NSD dataset (given to the MRC CBU Chaucer Club).
If you would like to access the NSD dataset, please fill out this short NSD Data Access Agreement. Upon completion, you will receive a link to the NSD Data Manual which provides technical information, a comprehensive description of the data files, and information on how to access the dataset.

 The NSD dataset is a collaborative effort between PI Kendrick Kay and PI Thomas Naselaris, and the NSD data effort included contributions from the following researchers:


Funding for the NSD dataset was graciously provided by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Papers and pre-prints

Here are links to papers that use NSD data.

Here are links to conference papers and pre-prints that use NSD data.



Sample data acquired on the 8 subjects:
T1-weighted 0.8-mm isotropic MRI,
T2-weighted 0.8-mm isotropic MRI,
T2*-weighted (EPI) 1.8-mm isotropic fMRI