Beginners Guide to MATLAB, linear algebra and SPM statistics

• Learning MATLAB

  This tutorial cannot teach you everything about the MATLAB language, but the following should give you a flavour of the language (along with some concepts that generalise to other languages).

  • Desktop Basics. An introduction to the MATLAB desktop and basic commands.
  • Variables. An introduction to MATLAB variables.
  • Other Types. A few more types of variables.
  • Structures and Cell Arrays. Ways to organise data in MATLAB.
  • Control Flow. Putting functions together with if/else statements and loops.

• Linear Algebra

  The array operations dealt with so far have not included matrix multiplications, matrix division, etc. Understanding some linear algebra will be essential for understanding the statistical analyses you do with the SPM software.

  • Basic Linear Algebra. Concepts relevant to fitting linear combinations of basis functions to vectors of data.
  • More Linear Algebra. Slightly more advanced linear algebra topics.

• SPM Statistics

  Now that you should understand a bit more about working with matrices, you can use this knowledge to understand more about how to statistically analyse fMRI data.

  • Introducing SPM. How to install SPM and check that it is working.
  • Statistical Tests. How t and F tests are implemented in SPM.
  • Haemodynamic Modelling. Modifications for working with fMRI data.