Turbo-BrainVoyager v4.4

Release Notes

Version 4.4

Turbo-BrainVoyager 4.4 (TBV 4.4) provides new features and improvements:

Multi-Slice Enhanced DICOM Files. Recent software versions (e.g., 'XA30') of the manufacturer SIEMENS store data in the multi-frame enhanced DICOM format instead of the proprietary 'Mosaic' file format. Both formats store the slices of a volume in a single file but the official DICOM multi-frame format stores the slices in an array instead of in a Mosaic arrangement pretending to be a single slice for the non-enhanced DICOM format (single-slice in single file). During real-time functional analysis, a series of incremental multi-slice volume files are exported. This new export option is supported in TBV 4.4. For more details, see topic Settings for Siemens Multi-Frame DICOM Data.
Support for Philips NIfTI Files. Recent scanners from the manufacturer Philips export data for real-time analysis incrementally as NIfTI 3D volumes. This new export option is supported in TBV 4.4. For more details, see topic Settings for Philips NIfTI Data.
Advanced Data Simulator. The new Data Simulator supports creation of data sets (a series of NIfTI 3D volumes) that can be run through TBV and TBV EDU in the same way like real data recorded during fMRI scanning. Besides the educational value, the opportunity to easily simulate data with defined auxiliary files such as protocols substantially reduces the risk of issues during subsequent fMRI scanning sessions in the scanner. The simulator allows to model basic activation paradigms (simulating activity changes in ROIs) as well as more sophisticated multivariate pattern paradigms (simulating voxel-level effects). The simulator also models many noise sources to provide rather realistic voxel time courses. The data is projected at locations in a provided brain model in MNI space.
Initial Support for Integrated Semantic (RSA) Neurofeedback. TBV 4.4 implements tools that are useful to provide neurofeedback in a rich semantic representational space calculated using representational similarity analysis (RSA). For details, see topic Semantic Neurofeedback in the Neurofeedback chapter.

TBV 4.4 also provides bug fixes:

GE Signa HDxt Dicom Data - Coregistration. The coregistration of GE HDxt functional data with 3D anatomical (T1-weighted) datasets did not work correctly since header information from the wrong files was extracted. This issue has been fixed.
Non-256 3D Data in ACPC space. When using ACPC datasets with non-256 dimensions, the visualization of functional data was not correct (shifted in one or more dimensions). This issue has been fixed. The possibility to now support non-256 datasets in native and ACPC space enables more use cases such as using sub-millimeter anatomical datasets in the context of ultra-high field fMRI.
Check for Sagittal Orientation for 1mm Data. When 3D anatomical (T1-weighted) data are read by TBV, it is usually rotated to TBV's standard sagittal orientation in case the user agrees. This request to the user was not performed in earlier versions in case that the 3D anatomical data volume had 1mm resolution. This omission has been fixed in this release.

Version 4.2

Turbo-BrainVoyager 4.2 (TBV 4.2) provides useful improvements:

Improved time course detrending with incrementally added confounds. Time courses are now detrended from the first volume onwards using incremental addition of confound predictors to produce optimal results. The scheme how confound predictors are added over time can be inspected in the new Detrending Predictors Inclusion Times dialog where you can also change the settings if needed.
Perrcent signal change transformation of detrended time courses. Detrended ROI time courses are now displayed as percent signal change values that are computed at each time point by relating the current value to the predicted value from all confound predictors. These values express the magnitude of observed (condition-related) effects and they can be directly used for neurofeedback calculations.
Display current volume after motion correction. The option Show after motion corr. and smoothing option has been added in the Inplane tab of the TBV Settings dialog. In case that the field Overlay maps on functional volume is set to 'Current" (instead of 'First'), the Multi-Slice view shows volume slices after motion correction and spatial smoothing have been performed. This option makes it possible to visually check that motion correction is working correctly, i.e. slices should be stable and not moving throughout the run. This setting is now also the default for newly created TBV files. As in previous versions, the 'B' key allows to toggle the slice view to either show volume slices before or after motion correction and smoothing. The current setting can be inspected in the Log pane which displays the state in the 'OverlayOnVolume:' line with either 'Current_After-MC-SM' (MC = motion correction, SM = spatial smoothing) or 'Current_Before-MC-SM'.

Version 4.2 also provides important bug fixes and it is recommended that all users of TBV 4.0 upgrade to this release:

Suboptimal motion correction. In case that the 3D MC sinc interpolation option in the GPU Settings dialog has not been enabled, motion correction should have used standard trilinear resampling during motion detection and correction. While in this case the iterative detection of motion parameters worked as expected with trilinear resampling, the final application of motion parameters (motion correction step) erroneously used only nearest-neighbor interpolation leading to sub-optimal realignment results. Note that in case that the 3D MC sinc interpolation option was once enabled in the GPU Settings dialog, trilinear motion correction worked fine if explicitly chosen by setting SincResampling to 'No' in the TBV Settings dialog. It is, however, not possible to enable this feature on computers without GPU (OpenCL) support since in this case the 3D MC sinc interpolation option is disabled. Furthermore, even users with GPU support might not always have enabled this feature. For these reasons it is strongly advised that all TBV 4.0 users update to the TBV 4.2 release which ensures that proper trilinear resampling is always used correctly if sinc interpolation is not enabled.
Invisible menu bar. After installation of TBV on Windows 10, some users observed that the menu bar was not visible. This happens if the Windows font scaling settings produce a size for fonts that is too large to fit in the space of the menu bar. One way to solve this issue is to reduce the amount of scaling in the Windows 10 'Display Settings' by adjusting the 'Change the size of text, apps, and otehr items' entry in the 'Scale and layout' field. Changing this setting does, however, affect all apps and might not be desired. This release of TBV provides another solution, namely to decrease the font size of the menu bar text only. The respective command is available in the ? (Help) menu. This menu can be reached although the menu bar is not visible by pressing the ALT-F key combination; this opens the File menu from where one can move to the menus on the right by pressing the Cursor-Right key. After reaching the ?menu, one can click the Decrease Menu Bar Font Size item - if one click on this item is not enough, it can be repeated until the menu bar becomes visible. The adjusted setting is permanently stored in the global program settings and will, thus, also work after restarting TBV.
Intra-session motion correction - first volume. When realigning the volumes of subsequent runs to an earlier run, the first volume was skipped and not realigned to the reference volume of the earlier run. This issue has been fixed.
Position information in Siemens DICOM files. In rare cases position information was not available for all dimensions in some Siemens mosaic DICOM files in the used Seimens-specific part of the header, which could lead to wrong functional-to-anatomical alignment when using 3D anatomical data. This issue has been fixed by calculating position information for slices from the standard DICOM fields of the mosaic image.
Reading GE DICOM files. Some functional GE DICOM files could not be read reporting a reading error when starting real-time analysis. This issue has been fixed in this release.
Iso-voxelation. When reading high-resolution (sub-millimeter) anatomical DICOM files, the program recommends to iso-voxel the data so that functional results can both be visualized at original resolution in intra-session space as well as in 1mm MNI space. MNI transformation was, however, not possible since the iso-voxelatio step put wrong voxel size values in the VMR header. This issue has been solved.
Saving VOIs. When saving volumes-of-interest (VOIs) to disk, the program often included previously selected regions that were internally not removed from memory. This issue has been fixed and only the currently visible regions are saved now.

Version 4.0

Turbo-BrainVoyager 4.0 (TBV 4.0) provides many new features, enhancements and bug fixes:

New Json-based TBV format. The operation and settings used in TBV when processing data are controlled by a "TBV" file. In previous versions, it was difficult to ensure compatibility of ".tbv" files across versions since the entries in the used simpple text file required reading and writing entries in a fixed order. TBV 4.0 introduces a new JSON-based '.tbvj' file format that can be updated and maintained easily since the order and presence of entries is handled gracefully. As was the case with the old text file, the new TBVJ file format is still human-readable. The JSON format allows also manually modifying entries in a text editor, which would easily break reading when using the old file version. Note that TBV 4 still reads old .tbv files for compatibility but they should be saved after loading in the new ".tbvj" fromat since some new functionality (mentioned below) can only be controlled using the new JSON format.
GPU-based 3D motion correction using sinc interpolation. While most processing capabilities of TBV operate at the same level of quality than offline processing, 3D motion correction in previous versions only used trilinear interpolation for resampling volumes for the motion correction step. TBV 4.0 adds the possibility to resample volumes using sinc interpolation largely avoiding smoothing during the motion correction process; this new possibility operates in the same way as the default "trilinear - sinc" (motion detection using trilinear, motion correction using sinc) option in BrainVoyager. In order to ensure sufficiently short execution times, the feature is available only in case that a dedicated GPU is detected. The topic Enabling GPU Sinc Interpolation in the 'Control Settings' chapter describes how to enable this capability.
Integrating motion estimates in GLM design matrix. It is now easily possible to use estimated motion parameters as confound predictors in GLM design matrices often helping to remove residual motion-related noise sources. This option can be turned on setting the IncludeMotionParamsAsConfounds option in the Statistics tab of the TBV Settings dialog to 'Yes'. For further information, check the GLM Confound Settings topic.
Fine-grained alignment of functional and 3D anatomical data. The coregistration of functional volumes with intra-session 3D aaatomical data was performed in previous versions using a derived transformation matrix calculated from location information provided or extracted from headers of functional and 3D anatomical data files. While this "initial alignment" (IA) step provides usually good results, it does not account for head motion occuring between the anatomical and reference functional scan (usually the first volume of the functional run recorded right after the anatomical dataset). In TBV 4.0, the coregistration procedure now adds a fine-grained ("FA") gradient-based alignment step for optimal coregistration results in the same way as performed in BrainVoyager. The anatomical volume view now also displays in the left upper corner of the axial orthographic slice view which coregistration has been performed (only "IA" or "IA + "FA"). The perfromed FA (like IA) spatial transformation file is also saved to disk, e.g. for subsequent use avoiding recaulculating the fine-grained alignment. The FA file of a first run is, for example, reloaded when analyzing subsequent runs of the same session in case that motion correction is performed to the data of the first run. Note that the calculated FA spatial transformation matrix is also used when mapping FMR locations (e.g. ROI voxels) to VMR locations (e.g. VOI voxels in MNI space) and vice versa. Consult also the information in the Multiple Runs in Session topic.
Create Anatomical 3D VMR from DICOMs. It is now possible to create anatomical 3D datasets directly from measured DICOM files and to perform essential anatomical preprocessing and normalization (see below) steps that required using BrainVoyager software in previous versions. To create a 3D anatomical VMR, click the "Create 3D Anatomical (VMR) File" item in the "File" menu.
Inhomogeneity Correction of 3D Anatomical Data. After creating an anatomical dataset from DICOM files or after laoding an intra-session VMR file, intensity inhomogeneity correction can be performed by clicking the "IIHC" item in the "File" menu.
MNI normalization of 3D datasets. It is now possible to transform created (see above) or loaded 3D anatomical (VMR) datasets to normalized MNI space by using the "MNI trans" item in the "File" menu. The resulting MNI normalized file can be used for visualization and for using Volume-Of-Interests (VOIs) across sessions.
Displaying Coordinates and Statistical Values. When hovering with the mouse pointer over orthographic slices in the (EPI) volume view or anatomical volume view, the coordinates of the voxel below the mouse pointer will be displayed together with statistical information (t values) of each defined and overlaid contrast. In case that the anatomical view contains a 1mm resolution dataset in MNI (or Talairach) space, the coordinates will be displayed in the respective normalized space.
VOI Creation and Functional Masking. The Volumes-Of-Interest dialog allows to create, load and process VOIs. This allows, for example, to save VOIs in one session, load them in a subsequent session and project them into native functional space of the current session. VOIs can be created at specific MNI locations; prepared VOIs can be loaded from disk representing e.g. generic masks for specific area or networks as defined in the literature. Note that the dialog also displays the x, y, z coordinate values of the position of the cross. of the associated anatomical volume view. Besides being informative, MNI/Talairach coordinates can be used to define ROIs at locations obtained from relevant published material.
Detrended ROI time courses. Time courses of ROIs visualized in Time Course Windows in the main window and in the Time Courses Container are now detrended using all defined confound predictors, e.g. linear trend, non-linear confounds modelled with DCT predictors or 6 residual motion parameters, for details consult the GLM Confound Settings topic. Detrending is not only important for nicer displays of time courses but detrended time courses are also used as input for other calculations, including neurofeedback. This important option is thus enabled as default but it can be turned on and off using the D key toggle or the Display Detrended ROI Time Courses item in the View menu.
Automatic correspondence of (ROI) locations across views. When selecting a region in the FMR slice view and then switching to the EPI or VMR (e.g. MNI) volume view, the cross will automatically be placed at a representative position (see description in Anatomical Volume View topic). Likewise when selecting a location by clicking in the Volume (EPI) view and then switching to the anatomical volume view (e.g. MNI), the corresponding location will be automatically selected. Finally, when clicking on one of 2 (or more) time course windows, the 3D cross position will be adjusted to highlight the location of the respective ROI. The introduced tight linking of different views supports quick localization of regions in multiple views. Combined with the display of coordinates at hovered voxels (see above), this allows, for example, to quickly find out the MNI coordinates of a region in original space (multi-slice view or EPI volume view).
Variable size spherical ROI selection. When CTRL-clicking (CMD-clicking on macOS) at a location in the anatomical VMR view (e.g. in a native or MNI normalized dataset), the selection of a corresponding region in FMR space is now based on a created spherial ROI (VOI) around the selected voxel coordinates (as via the Volumes-Of-Interest dialog) replacing the fixed-size selection of previous versions. The radius of the spherical ROI can be selected in the number field in the lower right section of the main window, which switches from MultiSliceROIs to SphereRadius when switching to the anatomical VMR view.. For more details check the Anatomical Volume View and Creating Spherical VOIs topics.
Neurofeedback Logging. When running neurofeedback, the used and claculated values are now always saved to disk allowing to accurately reproduce offline what information was provided to the person in the scanner. This complements other existing export options but is optimized for neurofeedback applications, for details see topic ROI Activation Feedback Calculation.
Plugin command "tGetDetrendedValueOfROI". The new plugin command "float tGetDetrendedValueOfROI(int roi)" has been added to allow programmatic access to detrended values (if enabled). Also if not enabled (or not available at the begin of a run), this new function always returns the same value as displayed in the corresponding ROI Time Course Window.

Version 3.2

Turbo-BrainVoyager 3.2 provides the following new features and enhancements:

Neurofeedback based on Pattern Classifier. The real-time pattern classification tool introduced in the previous version can now be used as a source for generating classification-based neurofeedback signals. More specifically, it is now possible to use the gradual output value(s) of a trained (multi-class) classifier to generate delayed or moment-to-moment feedback signals. The Neurofeedback dialog contains new options to choose the output from a running SVM classifier as input for the thermometer display. For moment-to-moment feedback, the Real-Time Classification dialog now supports not only the possibility to generate classifier output at the end of a trial but also at each time point during (shifted) protocol conditions.
SVM Access Plugin. The plugin interface has new commands to access raw classifier output signals for custom processing, e.g. for advanced brain-computer interface (BCI) applications, or for specific calculations for custom neurofeedback visualizations. The new commands are described in the plugin interface documentation and demonstrated in the source code of the provided "Example Plugin - SVM Access" plugin; a compiled version of the plugin is also placed in the TBV plugins folder during program installation and accessible from the Plugins menu.
BOLD Decoder for Communication BCI. The BOLD Decoder tool can be used for BCI applications such as multiple choice tasks or letter decoding. The tool provides the features described in the publication "Sorger, B., Reithler, J., Dahmen, B., Goebel, R. (2012). A Real-time fMRI-based Spelling Device Immediately Enabling Robust Motor-independent Communication. Current Biology, 22, 1333-1338". The tool can be invoked by selecting the Bold Decoder item in the BCI menu.
Time Courses Container. The new Time Courses Container allows to visualize time courses and beta plots within a grid layout, i.e. in a number of rows and columns. The zoomable visualization of time course data and estimated betas from all available ROIs provides a manageable overview and is helpful when comparing ROI data in detail, e.g. when selecting regions for neurofeedback applications. The new window can be invoked by selecting the Show Time Courses Container item in the View menu.
Visualization of Maps on Current Volume. It is now possible to visualize calculated maps on the currently processed functional (usually EPI) volume during real-time processing. This is important for quality assurance, i.e. to detect potential scanner problems or problems with reading raw data files. To turn on this display option, click on the Overlay on Current Func Volume item in the View menu. Alternatively, press the C key that acts as a toggle, i.e. pressing it repeatedly will switch back and force between overlay-on-current-volume and overlay-on-first-volume mode. The Overlay on First Func Volume item in the View menu can also be used to switch to overlay-on-first-volume mode. Furthermore, press the B key in overlay-on-current-volume mode to toggle between displaying the current volume either before (default) or after spatial preprocessing has been performed. This possibility can be used to inspect the effect of online preprocessing, including motion correction and spatial smoothing. The currently specified display mode is shown in the standard Log pane in the right lower part of the TBV screen.
New Neurofeedback Options. Several new options to control ROI activation feedback have been introduced. Feedback can now be turned off for a specified condition, e.g. to show no feedback during a baseline condition. Furthermore, the selection of data points for calculation of a baseline can now be explicitly controlled. In case that a linear trend predictor has been included in (ROI) GLM calculation, detrended ROI time courses (see above) will be used to calculate baseline and feedback values instead of raw signal values. Furthermore, the possibility to preload ROI or VOI files for neurofeedback is now made more easy to access with the new Pre-Load ROI and Pre-Load VOI buttons in the top section of the main window of TBV.
Bug Fixes, Tips. In very rare cases, Siemens DICOM mosaic header files were not parsed correctly (in case that the header contained more than one DICOM "begin data" key) - this issue has been fixed. The "MultiSliceROIs" value specified in the TBV settings file was not used (erroneously set to 0) - this issue has been fixed. At the begin of a run, beta estimates of ROI time courses could be unstable - this has been fixed; for best beta estimation results at the begin of scans, it is strongly recommended to use linear trend removal (select "1" (default) in the DriftConfoundPredictors spin box of the Statistics tab in the TBV Settings dialog) for temporal high-pass filtering and not higher values for non-linear drift removal.

Version 3.0

Turbo-BrainVoyager 3.0 provides the following new features and enhancements:

Open Architecture via Plugin Interface. The new plugin interface allows full access to all relevant internal data structures supporting any kind of custom processing. In order to quickly learn how to write plugins, the source code of two plugins are provided as examples; the compiled executable of these plugins can also directly be used by selecting them in the Plugins menu. Another includede plugin implements real-time ICA (see below) that uses advanced API functions allowing to visualize custom maps in real-time.
The plugin "Example Plugin - ROI Processing" demonstrates how one may access the content of all currently defined ROIs, both at the level of mean signal values as well as at the voxel level. This feature allows, for example, to combine signal time courses such as subtracting the values of a "background ROI" from the values in functionally specific regions; the result of such processing can be exported for custom real-time visualization software.
The plugin "Example Plugin - Export Volume Data" demonstrates how at each incremental time point preprocessed raw data, beta maps and t maps can be accessed enabling any kind of custom real-time processing as well as export of the full data to external software such as Matlab, e.g. to perform additional calculations or to create custom (feedback) displays.
Real-Time Multi-Voxel Pattern Classification. This version introduces real-time multi-voxel pattern classification based on support vector machines (SVMs). In a training phase, data from one or more runs can be specified. At any moment in a test run, incremental classification can be turned on to predict the class of evoked activity. This allows to conduct online "brain reading" applications.
Real-time Independent Component Analysis (rt-ICA). Real-time ICA is now available as a plugin that has been implemented by Fabrizio Esposito (Brain Innovation). When launching it from the Plugins menu, it will ask for a range of slices and a temporal window that will be used for the data-driven multivariate detection of functional networks. If a region-of-interest has been defined, the discovered networks (components) will be ranked with respect to the overlap of the components with the ROI, i.e. the component(s) are visualized that include the selected region. Using the Show plugin maps option, it is possible to show either the calculated plugin maps (components) or the standard GLM-based contrast maps.
Support for GE Signa HDxt Scanners. The recent generation of GE scanners exports DICOM data incrementally that can now be processed by Turbo-BrainVoyager.
Advanced 3D Visualization for Philips Data. It is now also possible for exported Philips (DRIN) data to visualize real-time maps in intra-session and extra-session (ACPC, TAL space) 3D anatomical data sets. The new alignment options also allow using defined VOIs across scanning sessions. In the current release this feature requires the use of BrainVoyager.
Improved Support for Mesh Visualization. Beyond folded surfaces supported previously, It is now possible to visualize incrementally analyzed data on inflated and flattened cortex meshes; the inflated mesh(es) need to be specified in the VMR-SRF tab of the TBV Settings dialog; note that the folded meshes that were used to create the inflated/flattened meshes need to be stored in the same folder since the morphed mesh look up the coordinates of vertices in the folded version to perform correct visualization.

Version 2.8

Besides bug fixes, Turbo-BrainVoyager 2.8 provides the following enhancements:

Improved Support for Siemens real-time export. The new Siemens export function introduced with scanner software VB15A is now better supported and documented.
Delayed feedback. The "Neurofeedback" dialog now allows to provide not only direct (ongoing) feedback but also feedback at the end of blocks. Such "delayed feedback" of the mean level of activity of a whole block may be helpful in the context of some clinical neurofeedback applications. This option can be turned on by enabling the "Delayed feedback" option in the "Feedback type" field of the "Neurofeedback" dialog. Click the "Options" button to invoke the "Delayed Feedback Settings" dialog that can be used to select the protocol condition that should be used for calculating delayed feedback values. You may also specify the data points used for calculating the baseline value ("Baseline interval") as well as the time points used to calculate the average activation value with respect to the baseline ("Modulation interval"). You may also specify a "Feedback file" that will contain the stored feedback values that can be used for providing feedback to the subject using custom software. The "Update feedback file" value specifies when the feedback file should be written (value must be larger than end point of modulation interval) and the "Scale beta value" spin box can be used to specify a value for scaling the estimated percent signal change beta values.
Improved feedback output for custom applications. In previous versions, volume-by-volume files containing mean ROI signal values (.RTP) files was only produced when the "Neurofeedback" dialog was open and when the time course feedback option was selected. The .RTP files are especially useful for custom processing of real-time ROI data. In this version, the "Log ROI Time Point Files (RTPs)" output option can now be turned on/off from the "Analysis" menu, i.e. opening the "Neurofeedback" dialog is no longer necessary. This option is turned on as default. Furthermore, the mean ROI signal values are now stored as float values for highest precision (also in ".ERT" files that also store data of individual voxels).

Version 2.6

Turbo-BrainVoyager 2.6 provides the following enhancements:

Support for new Siemens real-time export. With recent software releases, Siemens supports a new real-time export functionality saving each volume of data in a mosaic Dicom file. This feature must be turned on requiring an IDEA license. For details, consult the Siemens documentation. Turbo-BrainVoyager 2.6 is able to use the exported data. This requires specification of the "SIEMENS_DICOM_MOSAIC" data type and a specification of the first file, e.g. as "001_000003_000001.dcm" (if this is the scan (series) 3). Subsequent files would be written as "001_000003_000002.dcm", "001_000003_000003.dcm" and so on.
Conjunction contrasts. A new option is now available allowing to visualize a map as the conjunction of all currently selected contrasts.
Compatibility with BrainVoyager. This version increases the compatibility of the produced output files with BrainVoyager. The order of slices is no longer reversed in TBVas in previous versions, which is visible in the multi slice view but not in the volume views since for visualization the order of slices is adjusted in such a way that the brain appears upright in the respective views. The increased compatibility with BrainVoyager allows to load and further process TBV data.

Version 2.4

Besides improvements and bug fixes, Turbo-BrainVoyager 2.4 provides the following new features:

Smoothed Feedback. The bar graph display in the Neurofeedback dialog may now show a smoothed version of the calculated feedback signal.The Avergage feedback values field allows to specify how many recent values are averaged to obtain the current display value. With the default value of "1", no averaging takes place; while this gives feedback about momentary changes of the ROI BOLD data, the feedback signal might fluctuate substantially. A large value (e.g. "10" or more) results in a very smooth feedback signal but at the cost of a long delay with respect to the underlying cognitive events. As a good compromise, we suggest values between "3" and "5" implementing a modest temporal low-pass filter.
Dynamic ROIs. It is now possible to automatically optimize ROIs by specifying that a percentage of "top" voxels should be determined and used as the efffective sub-ROI. Dynamic ROIs generally lead to better signal extraction from ROIs, especially in case of coarse anatomical ROI specification. But also functional ROIs benefit from dynamic selection: By defining rather broad initial ROIs, dynamic voxel selection ensures that the best sub-ROI will be determined even if there are small alignment errors across successive runs or movement-related slice shifts. Dynamic ROIs can be turned on from the Neurofeedback dialog, for details check the Dynamic ROIs documentation.
Incremental ROI Beta Export. For neurofeedback studies, the Neurofeedback dialog can be used to create basic feedback displays, which can be presented to subjects, e.g. by using the "Feedback Presenter" software. To support creation of special feedback displays for custom software, Turbo-BrainVoyager exports "extended ROI time course" (.ERT) files if the Log ROI Time Courses option is enabled in the Analysis menu. In this file, the signal values of each ROI (and even for each voxel within ROIs) are stored incrementally to disk: When the data for a time point is processed, ROI signal values are appended to the experiment's .ERT file. For several purposes, it might be desirable to know the estimated beta values for each ROI. While custom software could use the exported ROI time course values to calculate beta values, this version of Turbo-BrainVoyager adds the Log ROI Betas option in the Analysis menu, which is enabled as default. With this option turned on, the estimated condition beta values are incrementally saved in a "beta time course" (.BTC) file.
Preloading VOI Files. ROIs defined in "native" space (.ROI files) can be loaded at any time. A useful option is that a .ROI file can be specified already before a prepared .TBV file is executed, i.e. before any data has been processed. This is useful during a neurofeedback session when ROIs have been determined in a localizer run, which should be used in subsequent neurofeedback runs. ROIs can be also defined in ACPC or Talairach space when using 3D data sets. In this case the ROIs are stored in .VOI files either from Turbo-BrainVoyager or from BrainVoyager. While .VOI files could be loaded already in previous versions, this release of TBV allows to preload a VOI file in a similar way as described above for .ROI files.

Version 2.2

Strings for directories (e.g. watch folder, target folder, but also references to files such as protocols) can now be specified in a relative manner with respect to the folder containing the TBV file. A relative path begins with a "./" substring. When reading a TBV settings file, relative paths are expanded by prepending the path containing the TBV file. When saving a TBV file, paths are made relative if they reside within the folder with the TBV file or in any subfolder. This new mechanism allows it to move data to new places without breaking folder and file location specifications.
The TBV Settings dialog now shows the value of the TimeOutSeconds value. This value had to be changed directly in the ".tbv" file in previous versions but can now be changed in the General tab of the TBV Settings dialog.
Philips provides a elegant interface to export data during real-time scanning with the new DRIN system that is now supported in Turbo-BrainVoyager.
When working with ROIs/VOIs, it was not possible to switch between multiple ROIs since all newly opened ROI (interactively or by loading a file) were always added to the already existing ones. The Analysis menu now has an entry Remove ROI Time Courses deleting all currently available ROI time courses. New time courses can be then added interactively or by loading ROI / VOI files from disk.
The code routines for statistical and visualization routines has been further optimized with an overall gain of 50-100% processing time.
The Neurofeedback dialog has been improved calculating more sensitive baseline values and also allows to present feedback for 2 ROIs with 2 thermometer displays.