Add additional abd datasets to package?

[monicathieu]

I teach a statistics course for neuroscience majors, and have been finding this package very useful to supply example data for lecture slides and homework assignments!

I noticed that some of the source packages for these datasets, like abd, have other neuroscience-related datasets that I am hopeful would be very easy to import. Your package is extra useful because abd has some dependency packages that don't currently have binaries for Mac and it makes it very annoying for me to install abd directly, whereas NeuroDataSets is quite lightweight.

Would you consider adding the abd datasets ChimpBrains and BrainExpression to the package? thank you!

[lightbluetitan]

Dear Monica

Thank you very much for your kind and thoughtful comments about NeuroDataSets. We’re truly delighted to hear that the package has been useful in your statistics course for neuroscience majors. It means a lot to know that it’s helping support teaching and research in the neuroscience community.

We’re happy to confirm that the ChimpBrains and BrainExpression datasets from the abd package will be included in the upcoming version 0.3.0 of NeuroDataSets, which is planned for release by the end of December 2025 or early January next year. This update will also expand the collection to around 50–80 neuroscience-related datasets.

It has been exciting to see how well the package has been received by the community. NeuroDataSets was selected among the Top 40 New R Packages in the “Data” category (May 2025)
👉 rworks.dev: Top 40 New CRAN Packages

and has already surpassed 3,000 downloads, which we consider a great milestone for such a specialized field.

Your message brings us even more joy, as tomorrow, November 12, we’ll be presenting NeuroDataSets as a scientific poster at the 5th International Congress of Neuroscience (NeuroUTEC) in Lima, Peru.
📸 Instagram announcement

I sincerely hope we’ll have the opportunity to connect and talk sometime in the future. Once again, thank you so much for your kind words and for using NeuroDataSets — it truly motivates us to keep improving and growing the project.

With much appreciation
Renzo Cáceres Rossi

[lightbluetitan]

Hi Monica

Thank you so much for your suggestions! I just released version 0.3.0 of NeuroDataSets, and I’ve added the datasets you recommended, ChimpBrains and BrainExpression. I really appreciate your input—it helped make the package even more useful.

Best regards

Renzo Caceres Rossi