asl-mri-utils

Command-line tools for post-processing Siemens arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI data: recovering true acquisition order from DICOM, converting to NIfTI, splitting timeseries by TI/label/control, and computing perfusion-weighted difference images.

Siemens-only by design. The whole pipeline reads the true LABEL/CONTROL/M0/TI order straight from per-frame DICOM tags, not from filenames or protocol names, so it needs the Siemens tags that provide that: the standard ASL DICOM tags plus one Siemens private tag for TI ordering. If an expected tag is missing, a command raises a specific exception rather than guessing.

Table of contents

• Install
• Requirements
• Quickstart
• Commands
  • order
  • convert
  • split
  • subtract
  • discover
• Further reading

Install

pip install asl-mri-utils

For local development, from a clone of this repository:

pip install -e .

Requirements

Each external binary is found via an explicit flag first, then an environment variable, then PATH: --dcm2niix-bin/$ASL_MRI_UTILS_DCM2NIIX for dcm2niix, --afni-bindir/ $ASL_MRI_UTILS_AFNI_BINDIR (a directory) for the AFNI programs.

Quickstart

A typical run, starting from one Siemens ASL series' exported DICOM folder:

# 1. See what dcm2niix would even produce: LABEL/CONTROL/M0 order, TI index, and timing,
#    read straight from the DICOM headers.
asl-mri-utils order 021-my_asl_series

# 2. Convert that series to NIfTI, per echo. This also builds each echo's oxasl-ready
#    *_asl.nii.gz/*_mzero.nii.gz and oxasl_params.json.
asl-mri-utils convert 021-my_asl_series ./niftis

# 3. (Optional) Split echo 1 into per-TI, per-label/control NIfTIs -- useful to inspect, or to
#    hand to other tools directly.
asl-mri-utils split ./niftis/021_my_asl_series_echo-01_asl.nii.gz \
                     ./niftis/021_my_asl_series_echo-01_order.tsv

# 4. Compute perfusion-weighted difference images. --mc motion-corrects first; --mean adds a
#    temporal-mean companion to every diff file (the actual perfusion-weighted map).
asl-mri-utils subtract ./niftis/021_my_asl_series_echo-01_asl.nii.gz \
                        ./niftis/021_my_asl_series_echo-01_order.tsv \
                        --mc --mean

(The *_asl.nii.gz files above only exist when convert had something to remove -- M0 volumes or a trailing unpaired block. Otherwise use the raw *_echo-01.nii.gz, which oxasl_params.json's asl_file names; a dedicated M0 series yields only *_mzero.nii.gz.)

Step 3 is optional: subtract does not need split's output. Running it separately just lets you inspect the per-TI/label/control NIfTIs on their own, e.g. in fsleyes or afni.

Commands

order: recover acquisition order

Recovers the true LABEL/CONTROL/M0/TI acquisition order of a Siemens ASL series directly from per-frame DICOM tags (ASL Context, a Siemens private ordering tag), independent of filenames or protocol names. Writes one order.tsv per echo: volume_index, echo, ti_index, temporal_index, asl_context, acq_time, delta_t (seconds since the first image).

asl-mri-utils order <dicom_series_dir> [<dicom_series_dir> ...] [--outdir DIR]
asl-mri-utils order --all [ROOT] [--outdir DIR]

convert: DICOM to NIfTI

Wraps a local dcm2niix/dcm2niix_afni install to convert one series directory to NIfTI, entirely per echo. For each echo, writes:

• the raw NIfTI + JSON sidecar, renamed to this package's own *_echo-0N convention
• *_echo-0N_order.tsv (same schema as order, above)
• an oxasl-ready *_echo-0N_asl.nii.gz (label/control volumes) and *_echo-0N_mzero.nii.gz (M0 volumes), with a matching *_echo-0N_aslcontext.tsv. The _asl file is only written when it removes something from the raw file (M0 volumes or a trailing unpaired block); a series with neither is already oxasl-ready as-is, and oxasl_params.json's asl_file points at the raw NIfTI. A dedicated M0 series (folder name has an M0 token, or --m0-series) gets only _mzero.nii.gz. oxasl_params.json is the source of truth for which files to feed oxasl.
• *_echo-0N_oxasl_params.json, recording the (iaf, order, ntis, tis_ms, rpts) shape oxasl needs. tis_ms comes from --slice-timing FILE (the sequence's TimingInfo file, which also gives per-slice TIs), else --tis, else the DICOM header where the protocol stored it there; otherwise null, with a note explaining why, not a guess.

If an AFNI install is available and the JSON sidecar has a SliceTiming field, that's also burned into every NIfTI's header via 3drefit -Tslices.

asl-mri-utils convert <in_dir> <out_dir> [--dcm2niix-bin PATH] [--overwrite] [--m0-series | --no-m0-series]

split: per-TI, label/control timeseries

Splits one echo's timeseries into per-TI NIfTIs, each further split into its label-only and control-only subseries:

<stem>_TI<k>.nii.gz          # that TI's label+control volumes, chronological order
<stem>_TI<k>_label.nii.gz    # that TI's label volumes only
<stem>_TI<k>_control.nii.gz  # that TI's control volumes only

Point it at either the raw per-echo timeseries from convert, or its *_asl.nii.gz -- either way, pass the matching order.tsv. Which one you gave it is detected automatically, from its own volume count.

asl-mri-utils split <nii> <order_tsv> [--echo N] [--ti N ...] [--outdir DIR]

subtract: perfusion-weighted difference images

Computes a perfusion-weighted difference image per TI. Like split, it accepts either the raw timeseries or *_asl.nii.gz.

The default method, simple, is just label - control and its negation (the same decimated pairs as standard, written as *_LCdiff/*_CLdiff). Pass --methods standard surround sinc instead for Liu & Wong (2005, NeuroImage 24:207-215) pairwise/surround/sinc subtraction -- three different ways of handling the tradeoff between temporal resolution and noise when differencing an alternating label/control series. --recommend block|event_related picks one of those three automatically, per the paper's own guidance, instead of listing --methods by hand.

• --methods running: pairwise difference at every adjacent label/control pair (2N-1 outputs), vs standard's decimated pairs (N outputs). surround and sinc also give one output per acquired volume. No method adds information, and full-rate outputs are autocorrelated (lag-1 ~0.5 running, ~0.67 surround, ~0.64 sinc, ~0 standard) in a way that cannot be prewhitened (spectral nulls of the filter), so fit the unsubtracted data or use decimated standard pairs. See docs/subtract.md for the L C L C illustration.
• --combine diff|avg|both|auto: besides the perfusion difference (control - label), write the BOLD-weighted average (control + label) / 2 through the same filter (*_avg.nii.gz). auto writes the difference for the lowest echo and the average for later echoes. Full-rate averages cannot be prewhitened any more than the differences can; for BOLD statistics use the raw later-echo data or the decimated standard --combine avg with an AR fit.
• --grid midpoint: sinc interpolates both conditions to the midpoints between volumes.
• --label-first: write the difference as label - control (files get an _LC suffix) for sequences where the label image is the brighter one. Sign convention only; see docs/subtract.md.
• --mc: motion-correct the whole timeseries first (AFNI 3dvolreg, base volume 0), then split into TIs and label/control from the corrected file. Every output is then named off the resulting _volreg file. Also saves *_volreg.aff12.1D (matrices), *_volreg_motion.1D and a motion plot. On a multi-echo dataset, run the lowest echo first: --mc on every other echo then automatically applies that echo's *_volreg.aff12.1D (3dAllineate), so all echoes share one motion estimate.
• --split-mc: like --mc (implies it), but estimate motion in two passes -- controls registered to control volume 0, labels registered to that same control volume 0 -- then interleave back to the original volume order. Saves the same *_volreg.aff12.1D (one matrix per original volume), which other echoes apply unchanged.
• --mean / --tsnr: add a temporal-mean, or temporal-mean/temporal-std, companion to every diff file produced. --mean's output is the perfusion-weighted map most people actually want.
• --sinc-interp: for the sinc method only, swap its estimator for an alternative (windowed-sinc, FFT, Gaussian process regression, or a Kalman filter/RTS smoother -- see docs/interpolate.md).

asl-mri-utils subtract <nii> <order_tsv> [--ti N ...]
    [--methods simple|standard|running|surround|sinc ...] [--recommend block|event_related]
    [--combine diff|avg|both|auto] [--grid sample|midpoint] [--label-first]
    [--sinc-interp truncated|windowed_sinc|fft|gp|kalman]
    [--mc | --split-mc] [--afni-bindir DIR] [--mean] [--tsnr] [--outdir DIR]

glm: OLS on subtracted ASL, corrected for the filter

asl-mri-utils glm <nii> <order_tsv> --method surround --design regressors.tsv --contrast act=perfact_ti1:1 fits contrasts on the subtracted series of each TI with the variance and degrees of freedom corrected for the subtraction filter (FEAT's perfusion-subtraction route, which cannot use prewhitening because the filter's correlation has spectral nulls). It builds the filter from the raw volumes, passes the design through it (a ti<k> baseline is annihilated and dropped, perf_ti<k> becomes the intercept), and writes *_cope/*_varcope/*_tstat maps plus a *_glm.json with the effective degrees of freedom. It warns when the brain-mean C/L differs from 1 by more than 2% (BOLD then leaks into the perfusion contrast). See docs/glm.md and docs/filters.md.

regressors: design columns for unsubtracted ASL

asl-mri-utils regressors <nii> <order_tsv> writes <stem>_regressors.tsv: per volume, the control/label modulation (+0.5 / -0.5, 0 for M0) and, per TI, a baseline indicator ti<k> and a perfusion modulation perf_ti<k>, for fitting the unsubtracted data in FEAT or AFNI (Mumford et al. 2006, NeuroImage 33:103-14) with an AR noise model (FILM / 3dREMLfit).

--task NAME=FILE (repeatable; onset duration [amplitude] per line, seconds) adds FEAT's full-model EVs per TI, at each volume's true acquisition time: bold_ti<k>_NAME (task x HRF) and perfact_ti<k>_NAME (task x perf_ti<k>). --format afni|fsl|all also exports .1D / per-EV text files. See docs/perfusion-fmri.md.

lcratio and autocorr: noise and contrast diagnostics

asl-mri-utils lcratio <nii> <order_tsv> reports the brain-mean label/control ratio per TI and warns about a large static difference (BOLD leaking into the perfusion contrast) or a negative C - L. asl-mri-utils autocorr <nii> <order_tsv> [--method running] maps the residual autocorrelation (raw, or through a subtraction filter next to the filter's exact value). See docs/autocorr.md.

discover: find series directories

Finds candidate DICOM series directories under a root, matching the NNN-SeriesDescription folder convention order --all/convert expect.

asl-mri-utils discover [ROOT]

Further reading

Each module has its own page under docs/, with the implementation detail this README leaves out (exact DICOM tags, the Liu & Wong equations, worked examples):