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Dear SPMers,

I know this question has been asked before, but it doesn't seem that 
there is a lot of recent consensus.

I have done a second-level analysis in SPM2.  I was interested in 
seeing all of the activated voxels in one of my contrast images, so I 
lowered the threshold to T = 1.1 (1.0 results in a crash, 
incidentally).

When I did that, I noticed a LOT of activity outside the brain.  I 
wondered if that activity outside the brain might result from 
smoothing, and if so, if masking it out would help boost power.

If masking it out would help boost power, would it be reasonable to 
mask the first-level contrast images, and then include the new, 
masked contrast images in the second-level analysis?

Or would the approach discussed in 2002 by Stephan Kiebal (via Tom 
Nichols, 
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind02&L=SPM&P=R36174&I=-3) 
be better? (Below)


         (1) Configure, but don't estimate a model
         (2) Modify SPMcfg.mat...

                 load SPMcfg.mat
                 xM.TH = -Inf;
                 xM.VM = spm_vol('mask_all.img');
                 save SPMcfg xM -append
         (3) Estimate the model


Any suggestions, including those not mentioned above, would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Christy

(sorry for the repeat message... I hit "send" before the last version 
was ready)

-- 
Christy Marshuetz
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Yale University
2 Hillhouse Avenue
P.O. Box 208205
New Haven, CT 06520-8205
Phone: (203) 432-4636