Hi Ghazal,
> I am doing fMRI experiment on children 8-11 years.
> I was wondering in order to normalize the functional scans after realigning , I have to use a template.
> the available templates for EPI are from adults' brain.
> I have seen the TOM toolbox to make a new template of my scans but as far as I understood it is used to make T1 templates for anatomical scans.
> what is the key to get an EPI template
> is there any template available for children brain for EPI scans?
> I would be grateful if you could give me a hint
It is true that you should use an appropriate template if you process
pediatric imaging data. It is also true that we did not include EPI data
but it is no problem to coregister your functional images to your
anatomical and then normalize the anatomical, preferrably by using the
(unified) segmentation approach, which is where the priors generated by
TOM come into play. The idea behind using the anatomicals is that you
have better contrast, resolution, and signal-to-noise in a T1. It is
also less scanner-dependent. By the way, the really cool thing about the
TOM toolbox is that it comes with estimated reference data so you can
create a template for your population, but not based on your population,
which is much better if you only have small groups (see the paper for
some illustrations).
Hope this helps,
Marko
--
=====================================================================
Marko Wilke (Dr.med./M.D.)
[log in to unmask]
Universitäts-Kinderklinik University Children's Hospital
Abt. III (Neuropädiatrie) Dept. III (Pediatric neurology)
Hoppe-Seyler-Str. 1, D - 72076 Tübingen
Tel.: (+49) 07071 29-83416 Fax: (+49) 07071 29-5473
=====================================================================
|