VAMCA ("Visualization And Meta-analysis on Cortical Anatomy") is an open source meta-analysis, visualization, and significance testing toolbox for MatLab, and it can be run on many kinds of hardware. It is a command-line program that can be used to display MNI or Talairach coordinates on a mean cortical surface displayed in any one of 4 views. Two groups of coordinates can be displayed on the surface and they can be tested to see if they are not in the same location or in the same regions of interests. The stand-alone toolbox works with Matlab versions 5.3-7.x and requires 500 MB of free disk space.
Briefly, the VAMCA Toolbox does the following:
1) Multi-Fiducial Mapping: Map a normalized 3D coordinate to the cortical location in each of 60 subjects and view on one map.
2) Computing Median Locations for groups of foci on a mean cortex and in MNI-152 space.
3) Comparing Two Groups of Foci for differences in location of their centroids.
4) Detecting Significant Densities of Foci within 2 classes of ROIs on a mean cortical surface.
5) Detecting Density Differences of Foci Groups in order to detect activation differences within ROIs.
6) Comparisons of Groups of Foci Across Hemispheres.
The vamca.zip file that you can download below is the CNS Annual Meeting 2008 version. (4/25/2008) and contains:
Documentation:
- vamca.readme: lists the main files and gets you started
- vamca.txt: some documentation on detailed program options.
- VAMCAmethod.pdf: a poster on how VAMCA works.
- VAMCAauditory.pdf: a poster showing a sample meta-analysis using VAMCA.
- vamca.lic: the VAMCA license/disclaimer.
- vamca.html: some info about VAMCA's database and visualization.
Source and Executables:
- vamca.m: the VAMCA MatLab function.
- dovamca.m: a sample VAMCA calling function
Sample Data Files
- For reproducing examples in VAMCAmethod.pdf.
- For reproducing other documentation examples.
MNI space image atlas files for viewing output
- Mean T1 image of 60 database subjects.
- Mean cortical surface locations for 60 database subjects.
- Mean subcortical anatomy locations for 60 database subjects.
- Mean diffusion tensor images for 40 database subjects.
1) You can do whatever you like with the documentation, source, etc., but if you redistribute them:
> include enough files so that the next person can understand, use and modify VAMCA;2) If anything goes wrong when using VAMCA, you are not entitled to any redress from the authors, their employers, or funders. In other words, VAMCA is distributed "as-is" and with no warranty.
> document all of the source and documentation changes you make;
> do not misrepresent the history of creation and modification of VAMCA.
For more details on each of these points, see the (very short!) open-source license/disclaimer file "vamca.lic" after you download it. Given the above information, you can now choose whether to download our software or not.
The program has been downloaded times.
Timothy Herron, HCN Laboratory, UC Davis & VANCHCS, Martinez, CA, USA