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Neuroscience Notes

fMRI Methods Notes

  • Pitch (like baseball, lurch forward) - sagittal motion; Roll (roy --> king) - coronal motion; Yaw (aw --> axial) -- horizontal motion Elaboration: pitch - 'yes' nod (rotation around x-axis); roll - 'no' nod(rotation around z-axis); yaw - 'maybe' nod (rotation around y-axis)
  • Partial voluming - large voxel sizes bring together distinct elements, water down differences. Small voxels --> higher noise. Large voxels --> less granularity, ability to distinguish; Solution? Blur smaller voxels? Yes.

PyMVPA Notes

  • samples - rows in a matrix (e.g., runs, session, participants); 1st axis/index in a 2D array
  • features - columns in a matrix (e.g., voxels); like regressors almost in GLM design matrix; 2nd axis/index in a 2D array
  • sample attributes - categories under which a sample can be binned

SPM Notes

  • Website documenting SPM data structures - http://www.its.caltech.edu/~nsulliva/spmdatastructure.htm
  • Andy's Brain Blog documentation of data structures - http://andysbrainblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/using-spmmat-to-stay-on-track-ii.html
  • Information on preprocessing:
  • http://www.ernohermans.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/spm8_startersguide.pdf
  • http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~mgray/Presentations/Co-registration%20&%20Spaital%20Normalisation.ppt
  • SPM.xY.P is a character matrix for first-level analyses, a cell array for second level-analyses.