I read your post and got curious about the default smoothing operation in afni_proc.py. It is my understanding that a 'blur' block in afni_proc invokes 3dmerge to conduct a Gaussian FWHM blur at a specified level. But from your post above it would seem that this is a sub-par way to blur. If that's the case, is there a way to implement ACF smoothing in afni_proc?