> Is there any available toolbox/software that helps optimizing paradigms?
> Are their any specific rules that I should follow. Most papers say in a random and counterbalancing way.

This might be a good start:

  http://imaging.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/imaging/DesignEfficiency (general advice about how to optimise an fMRI experiment)


and here are some tools:

  http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/optseq/ (tool for optimising randomised designs)

  http://psych.colorado.edu/~tor/Software/genetic_algorithms.html (genetic algorithm for optimising fMRI designs)

  http://www.cabiatl.com/CABI/resources/fmrisim/ (tool for simulating fMRI designs)


plus you can also find a Matlab function called fMRI_GLM_efficiency.m that I have just put here:

  http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/rik.henson/personal/analysis/


BW,R

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Professor Richard Henson
Assistant Director for Neuroimaging
MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit
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From: SPM (Statistical Parametric Mapping) [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of fMRI [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 07 June 2013 09:15
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SPM] Event onset randomization and jittering

Hi all,

Is there any available toolbox/software that helps optimizing paradigms?

Are their any specific rules that I should follow. Most papers say in a random and counterbalancing way.


Thanks

AS