<p>Looking at papers, I often see an fMRI volume summarised by taking a single axial, sagittal and coronal slice (typically in MNI152 space). For an example see Figure 1 in de Bie et al, 2011 [1]. 
The text of a number of papers I have browsed doesn't explain how the slices are selected.</p>

<p>My question is what methods are conventional for selecting the x,y,z slice co-ordinates in such figures? </p>

<p>[1] <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alle_meije_Wink/publication/51077270_Resting-state_networks_in_awake_five-_to_eight-year_old_children/links/0fcfd50a5fafa7a0bb000000.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alle_meije_Wink/publication/51077270_Resting-state_networks_in_awake_five-_to_eight-year_old_children/links/0fcfd50a5fafa7a0bb000000.pdf</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-27T01:03:08.823Z
which coordinates best highlight the thing the paper is trying to show
honi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-27T08:53:11.550Z
Ooh, burn :) Understand your point, but I'm a stats person, so a) I want a principled method (realise I asked for conventional though), and b) doing this manually each time would be a bad outcome compared to writing software.
conjectures
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-07-27T15:23:57.580Z
hmm.  you could automatically select the slices with highest average activation?
honi
<fmri><visualization><publication>
Convention for selection of summary slices in fMRI
conjectures
# Convention for selection of summary slices in fMRI

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-07-25)

Looking at papers, I often see an fMRI volume summarised by taking a single axial, sagittal and coronal slice (typically in MNI152 space). For an example see Figure 1 in de Bie et al, 2011 [1].
The text of a number of papers I have browsed doesn't explain how the slices are selected.

My question is what methods are conventional for selecting the x,y,z slice co-ordinates in such figures?

[1] <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alle_meije_Wink/publication/51077270_Resting-state_networks_in_awake_five-_to_eight-year_old_children/links/0fcfd50a5fafa7a0bb000000.pdf>

**Tags:** fmri, visualization, publication

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: which coordinates best highlight the thing the paper is trying to show  
> **username_0**: Ooh, burn :) Understand your point, but I'm a stats person, so a) I want a principled method (realise I asked for conventional though), and b) doing this manually each time would be a bad outcome compared to writing software.  
> **username_1**: hmm.  you could automatically select the slices with highest average activation?  

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## 0 answers

