Apparatus and method for analysing functional mri data

Abstract

A system and method are provided for analysing a functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan representing a time-sequence, comprising t time points, of images comprising v voxels, where each scan can be represented by a data matrix X. The method comprises modelling the scan data X as the convolution of neural activation time courses Nand a haemodynamic filter Ψ, and performing an inverse operation to estimate N from X and Ψ. The method further compasses decomposing the neural activation time courses N into multiple brain network components by representing N as the product of a first matrix H defining, for each component, a spatial map of the voxels belonging to that component, and a second matrix W defining, for each component, the time sequence of activation of that component during the scan. In other implementations, the matrix decomposition may be performed before the deconvolution.