When Neuroscience Meets IT: Brain Research Sparks Stanford’s Elm Storage Service

Stanford Research Computing's Elm Storage Service offers scalable, cost-efficient storage for large datasets that don’t need to be accessed frequently.

Renowned Stanford psychiatrist and neuroscientist Karl Deisseroth uses different wavelengths of light to activate brain cells and neural pathways in a precise manner. His technique, called optogenetics, has led to better understanding of the role of our brain’s circuitry in disorders such as autism, anxiety, and depression.

In 2021, Deisseroth approached university leadership with a vision to systematically study patients’ brain activity for days at a time. Underlying his bold scientific proposal was a large logistical challenge: the massive datasets from measuring millisecond-by-millisecond neural activity in patients’ brains would require costly storage capacity, far beyond what existing systems could handle. 

What started as Deisseroth’s data dilemma has become Stanford’s solution to a university-wide challenge for storing data. This collaboration between Deisseroth's groundbreaking Human Neural Circuitry program (HNC) and Stanford Research Computing has produced a new, cost-effective storage platform called Elm, designed for researchers across campus grappling with large datasets.

“It all started from this idea within my lab that we needed to handle large amounts of data coming from people’s brains. These are such unique data streams coming from all over the human brain, and we wanted to collect continuously for many days. We realized that to scale it properly, to collect everything, we would need huge storage capability," Deisseroth said.

Launched in July 2025 by Stanford Research Computing, Elm offers a scalable, on-premise platform for storing large datasets from one terabyte to hundreds of petabytes with the help of modern tape technology. Elm is intended for researchers looking to store data and images from field studies or preserve research data to meet project or institutional requirements, such as data for regulatory or policy compliance purposes. 

“Elm is an affordable, energy-efficient, and low power way to store research data you are unlikely to access frequently,” says Stéphane Thiell, research storage lead for Stanford Research Computing. “Think of it as a vault for the data you want to keep, but don’t use often. It’s a thousand times more reliable than a hard drive, and far cheaper than cloud storage.” 

Kevin Tully, a research storage administrator in Stanford Research Computing, notes the added benefits of a Stanford-made storage tool. “We provide storage capacity comparable to AWS Glacier or Google Deep Archive, but without the high cost. Elm is based on open-source technology and it’s free to retrieve data, compared to commercial vendors where retrieval fees can escalate quickly, potentially reaching $100k or more for large-scale datasets in the petabyte range.” 

Big Data, Bigger Questions

Deisseroth and a Stanford-wide research team recently published a study in Science showing how emotions can powerfully influence our perceptions and decisions. 

To date, scientists held scant insight into how the brain actually holds onto emotional states. In this study, the Stanford team identified a fundamental, brain-wide response that appears to be the early neural foundation of how emotions form and persist. Their findings may explain how emotions form and linger to influence our behavior long after the original experience.

“Not only are we using Elm for our Human Neural Circuitry program, now it's turning out to be useful all across the Stanford community, like a university-wide backbone,” said Deisseroth. “Our collaboration reveals how things that are so important and useful can come from unexpected directions, seeded by fundamental science at Stanford.”

Elm is supported by the Stanford School of Medicine, the Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Research, and University IT. View documentation and FAQs about Elm, and learn more about Elm as a service. To explore data storage solutions in general, please contact Stanford Research Computing: srcc-support@stanford.edu.

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Professor Karl Deisseroth is the D.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; he is the founder and director of the Human Neural Circuitry (HNC) program. The core HNC faculty include Carolyn Rodriguez, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences; Paul Nuyujukian, MD, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering and of neurosurgery; and Vivek Buch, MD, assistant professor of neurosurgery.