Dear Donald,

Thanks very much for your response. I feel though that I did not express myself clearly in my description of the problem.

At first level, I ran a number of contrasts. For all these contrasts, there is a single mask file (per subject).

At second level, I compare my groups on each of these contrasts. For only some of these comparisons, I get the error I described. When I compare patients and controls, it is e.g. comparisons 1 and 7, when I regroup my participants to genotype A and genotype B, it may be 1 and 7 plus 13.

Given that all these comparisons have the same first level  masks, and estimations do work for most, would the examination of the first level  masks reveal anything for the comparisons that could not be estimated?

Thanks for your help in understanding this J

Best wishes,

Yannis

From: MCLAREN, Donald [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 05 June 2009 4:09 PM
To: Paloyelis, Yannis
Subject: Re: [SPM] model estimation error: There are no significant voxels.

Estimation does not require group difference, this error is telling you that there is no voxel with data from all of the images. Just because the estimation completed at the first level, does not mean that all subjects were estimated at the same voxel. Are you using analyze files? To check for alignment, do the following:

In imcalc, select all your mask.img from all the subjects first-level analyses.

In the equation box, enter: sum(X)>(N-.1)

where N is the number of subjects

In interpolation, select Nearest Neighbor

In Options --> Read Data as Matrix, select Yes.

Now, see if there are any non-zero voxels in the resulting file.

Hope this helps.

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Paloyelis, Yannis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear SPM users,

Sorry for reposting, but I did not get any replies the first time. Perhaps I might be more lucky this time J

Running a 2-sample t-test (comparing Groups A & B) on a number of first level contrasts, I get an error message for only two or three of the contrasts during estimation (no files are generated).

If I run the test using the GUI, then the error is just a warning saying:

Error running job: Error using ==> spm_spm at 861

Please check your data: There are no significant voxels.

In file "/storage/data/paloyelisy/SPM/spm5/spm_spm.m" (v946), function "spm_spm" at line 861.

In file "/storage/data/paloyelisy/SPM/spm5/spm_config_fmri_est.m" (v832), function "run_est" at line 394.

--------------------------

Done.

If I run the test using a script, the execution of the script stops and I  get a similar message:

??? Error using ==> spm_spm at 861

Please check your data: There are no significant voxels.

Error in ==> spm_config_fmri_est>run_est at 394

    SPM = spm_spm(SPM);

Error in ==> spm_jobman>run_struct1 at 1587

        feval(prog,val);

Error in ==> spm_jobman>run_struct1 at 1597

            run_struct1(c.val{i},gui);

Error in ==> spm_jobman>run_struct1 at 1597

            run_struct1(c.val{i},gui);

Error in ==> spm_jobman>run_job at 482

    run_struct1(c,gui);

Error in ==> spm_jobman at 89

            run_job(varargin{2});

Error in ==> T2ModelSpecificationEstimation at 166

       spm_jobman('run',jobs)

Would it be possible for someone to explain to me what this is about? Some recent postings on a similar topics suggested this could be an error of images not being lined-up, but in this case estimation was fine for most of the first-level contrasts, so  I am not sure how this could be the problem.

Does that simply mean that there were no significant voxels in either group and SPM does not need to compare the groups, or is it something else??

Many thanks for you help!

Best wishes,

Yannis

--
Best Regards, Donald McLaren
=====================
D.G. McLaren
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Neuroscience Training Program
Office: (608) 265-9672
Lab: (608) 256-1901 ext 12914
=====================
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