Mapping ROIs onto an Inflated Brain in BrainVoyagerQX

Thanks to my labmate Mike, and putting our two resourceful grad student brains together, we figured out how to create some awesome looking figures in BrainVoyager. Ever want to show your ROI on an inflated brain? Look no further than this brilliant plugin, with 32-bit, 64-bit AND MAC versions! Now all of your publication-quality ROI figures are just a few clicks away!

Tips/Steps:
1. Load your tal.vmr with your ROIs (no VTC required)
2. Load/create a mesh for your subjects' brain (or an avergae brain depending on what you want to show)
3. Once you place the VOI->POI plugin into your Plugins_32 or Plugins_64 folder (in My Documents/BVQXExtensions), it should show up in the Plug-ins menu in BVQX. Just click on it and select the number of millimeters you want the vectors for the surface coordinates to be

  • The default is 2mm, so BVQX will create surface coordinate vectors, measured in vertices, 2mm around the ROI coordinates, which are measured in voxels).
4. Flip over to your mesh, open the Points of Interest Analysis menu (from Meshes), show your POIs, and go to options to get rid of the default tags that show up.
5. To inflate your brain, follow the usual steps of Meshes > Morphing (don't forget to check inflation mode and set your iterations and updates!), and format your blown up brain in Meshes > Background and Curvature Colors. 
  • Check Use 2 colors for convex and concave at the bottom, and most journal-quality figures use grey for default and convex color (RGB:200) and dark grey for concave color (RGB: 60)
  • Curvature calculations can be done with the default Fast mode, or with the Gaussian curvature option
  • Just click Curvature to apply your settings.
  • Always save your meshes, VOIs, POIs, and take screenshots whenever you can to show off to all of your friends ;)


There were a significant number of high-fives given out when we figured out how to make these images (P<0.001)