Hi,

Does anyone here (possibly Ziad?) know how the resolution of an anatomical image tends to effect the quality of automatic spatial normalization (i.e., Talairaching with @auto_tlrc)? To put it another way, I wonder how much the accuracy of automatic spatial normalization is effected by the quality of the anatomical you want to take into standardized space.

I'm asking because I'm considering using two different sets of parameters on a 3T Siemens Tim Trio (8 channel head coil). One set of parameters would result in an approximately 9 minute anatomical (T1 MPRAGE). The other set of parameters would result in an approximately 5 minute anatomical (also T1 MPRAGE). I've looked (just visually) at images resulting from these two sets of parameters, and they don't look that different. The longer anatomical is higher quality, but not dramatically so. And, since this particular protocol is running tight on time, I thought that one way to shave some time off without taking a huge hit in data quality would be to use the shorter, somewhat less detailed anatomical.

So, again, if anyone has experience with how the resolution of the anatomical tends to effect the quality of automatic spatial normalization, I'd really appreciate your input.

-Joe