title: Simple fMRI postprocessing suffices for normal clinical practice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Whereas fMRI postprocessing tools used in research are accurate but unwieldy, those used for clinical practice are user-friendly but are less accurate. We aimed to determine whether commercial software for fMRI postprocessing is accurate enough for clinical practice.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ten volunteers underwent fMRI while performing motor and language tasks (hand, foot, and orolingual movements; verbal fluency; semantic judgment; and oral comprehension). We compared visual concordance, image quality (noise), voxel size, and radiologist preference for the activation maps obtained by using Neuro3D software (provided with our MR imaging scanner) and by using the SPM program commonly used in research.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Maps obtained with the 2 methods were classified as "partially overlapping" for 70% for motor and 72% for language paradigm experiments and as "overlapping" in 30% of motor and in 15% of language paradigm experiments.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  fMRI is a helpful and robust tool in clinical practice for planning neurosurgery. Widely available commercial fMRI software can provide reliable information for therapeutic management, so sophisticated, less widely available software is unnecessary in most cases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology,, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: González-Ortiz
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Oleaga
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pujol
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Medrano
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rumiá
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Caral
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Boget
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Capellades
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bargalló
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012984:Software