Learn about basic methods for fMRI data analysis and explore software tools in MATLAB and C for implementing some of these methods, with sample datasets. Includes a MATLAB based lab activity that requires minimal programming experience.

Videos:

• Nancy’s Brain Talks include videos on the design of fMRI experiments and analysis of fMRI data
• Idan Blank introduces fMRI and the General Linear Model for analyzing fMRI data, and uses this method to identify a language area of the brain (slides)
• Rebecca Saxe’s fMRI bootcamp includes a series of 9 lectures that introduce fMRI and delve into several methods for analyzing fMRI data
• Idan Blank, Systems neuroscience using fMRI: Studying the brain to understand the mind

Additional Resources:

• Overview and software tools to apply the Group-Constrained Subject-Specific (GSS) method, which is designed to algorithmically discover functional regions of interest (fROIs) that are activated systematically across subjects in an fMRI experiment. Also see tools for applying this analysis to the functional localization of language.
• fMRI 4 Newbies: A crash course in brain imaging, created by Jody Culham, Brain and Mind Institute, Western University
• Download code and data that includes a MATLAB Live Script (fMRI_GLM.mlx) that introduces the General Linear Model (GLM) for analyzing fMRI data, and applies this model to fMRI data collected from an experiment designed to locate areas of the brain that are engaged in language processing. This activity is based on a module created by Idan Blank on the MITx platform, for the Quantitative Methods Workshop, which introduces students to computational tools used in neuroscience research. Also see this adaptation of the module (with solutions) for use in an introductory undergraduate course on Brains, Minds, and Machines: The Science of Intelligence taught by Ellen Hildreth and Mike Wiest at Wellesley College
• AFNI training bootcamp and resources - AFNI is a set of C programs for processing, analyzing, and displaying anatomical and functional MRI data