Studied specimens

openMINDS supports the representation of two explicit types of specimens: “Subject” (referring to a whole organism) and “TissueSample” (referring to an extracted or artifically grown tissue). Moreover, openMINDS supports the additional or alternative representation of individual specimens as respective sets, referred to as “SubjectGroup” and “TissueSampleCollection”.

Time dependencies of specimen properties

For each specimen (set), openMINDS distinguishes timepoint-independent from timepoint-dependent properties which are captured separately in a specimen (set) state. Each specimen (set) is therewith linked to at least one specimen (set) state.

Descendence of specimens

openMINDS also supports you to identify if a specific state of a specimen (set) descents from a particular state of another specimen (set). For example, an unfixated state of a tissue sample can descent from an anaesthetized state of a subject as result of a biopsy, or an unmounted state of a tissue sample collection can descent from a fixated state of a tissue sample as result of a tissue slicing procedure.