Hi Jen,
If you want to blur within a mask, add -blur_in_mask.
Low intensity voxels that get blurred in at the periphery
will not have much effect on the result (since they are
low intensity).
Nnote that the default processing does not actually mask
the brain in the regression. Masking is typically left to
the step of correcting for multiple comparisons in group
analysis. We would rather see any artifacts.
Tissue-based regressors are computed before any
blur operation. That is not a concern.
- rick