LayNii: A software suite for layer-fMRI

• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118091
• Publication Date: 2021-05-12T16:13:26Z
• Authors: Laurentius (Renzo...; Benedikt A. Poser; Peter A. Bandettini; Kabir Arora; Konrad Wagstyl; Shinho Cho; Jozien Goense; Nils Nothnagel; Andrew Tyler Morgan; Job van den Hurk; Anna K Müller; Richard C. Reynolds; Daniel R. Glen; Rainer Goebel; Omer Faruk Gulban
• Keywords: Software suite

High-resolution fMRI in the sub-millimeter regime allows researchers to resolve brain activity across cortical layers and columns non-invasively. While these high-resolution data make it possible address novel questions of directional information flow within circuits, corresponding analyses are challenged by MRI artifacts, including image blurring, distortions, low SNR, restricted coverage. These challenges often result insufficient spatial accuracy conventional analysis pipelines. Here we introduce a new software suite that is specifically designed for layer-specific functional MRI: LayNii. This toolbox collection command-line executable programs written C/C++ distributed opensource as pre-compiled binaries Linux, Windows, macOS. LayNii layer-fMRI suffer from SNR coverage constraints thus cannot be straightforwardly analyzed alternative packages. Some most popular contain 'layerification' columnarization native voxel space well many other specific tasks: smoothing, model-based vein mitigation GE-BOLD data, quality assessment artifact dominated fMRI, VASO data.