Dear AFNI Rock Stars,
Hello from the City of Brotherly Love!

My question concerns using a normalized-and-converted-back&forth dataset as input to a 3dDeconvolve command.

I normalized a pre-processed, concatenated set of EPI's to a custom template created by a genius named John Pluta here at Penn, using ANTS. To do this, I had to convert my AFNI file CA08_ActionEpis+orig to NIFTI format (CA08_ActionEpis.nii), and input the NIFTI file to the normalization command. The resulting dataset was named CA08_ActionEpis_Norm.nii.

Then, in order to use this new, normalized set of EPI's as input to my 3dDeconvolve command, I converted it back to AFNI format like so:
3dcopy CA08_ActionEpis_Norm.nii CA08_ActionEpis_Norm

So now the first line of my 3dDeconvolve command looks like this:
3dDeconvolve -input CA08_ActionEpis_Norm+orig -num_stimts 9 -polort 2 -TR_times 1 \

But my script won't work. Instead I get this error:
** FATAL ERROR: 3dDeconvolve dies: Invalid -concat input: 132

3dinfo gives me the following, with no line for number of time steps (should be 528) or time step value (should be 2 sec TR):

Dataset File: CA08_ActionEpis_Norm+orig
Identifier Code: XYZ_p2Tqi-5Bs16Nkifxw7V9sw Creation Date: Fri Sep 25 14:22:49 2009
Dataset Type: Anat Bucket (-abuc)
Byte Order: LSB_FIRST [this CPU native = LSB_FIRST]
Storage Mode: BRIK file
Storage Space: 528000 (528 thousand) bytes
Geometry String: "MATRIX(3.75,0,0,-96,0,-3.75,0,128,0,0,4,-80):50,66,40"
Data Axes Tilt: Plumb
Data Axes Orientation:
first (x) = Right-to-Left
second (y) = Posterior-to-Anterior
third (z) = Inferior-to-Superior [-orient RPI]
R-to-L extent: -96.000 [R] -to- 87.750 [L] -step- 3.750 mm [ 50 voxels]
A-to-P extent: -115.750 [A] -to- 128.000 [P] -step- 3.750 mm [ 66 voxels]
I-to-S extent: -80.000 -to- 76.000 [S] -step- 4.000 mm [ 40 voxels]
Number of values stored at each pixel = 1
-- At sub-brick #0 '#0' datum type is float: 0 to 117.994

In other words, time series and TR info seems to have been lost somewhere in the process of converting & normalizing & converting back again. Have I gone down a path that I shouldn't have?

Thanks all!
Yours in AFNI fan-hood,
Whitney