The Talairach Daemon Client will read tab or space delimited records from text files containing lists of Talairach coordinates arranged in x-y-z order. Or, using the Single Point Processing dialog, one can input in a single coordinate to label. It will then look up the coordinate in the Talairach Daemon database for the Talairach label. There are options to search for the single point, search range or nearest gray matter. The output is written to a file which can be viewed in the program, a third-party text editor or imported into a third-party spreadsheet.
Installation
- Install Java
- Macintosh:
- All other platforms:
Your computer must have a Java Virtual Machine installed.
Java is installed by default and updated by Apple's Software Update.
- Download the software
- Unzip the file (if it wasn't done automatically at download)
Command-Line Iterfaces
There are two command line interface (CLI) methods that provide access to the Talairach Daemon (TD) databases. They are both based on Java code provided in a single .jar file. The methods, PointToTD and ExcelToTD, open a communication socket to the TD server, submit data, receive results, close the communication socket, and return the results.
The graphical Talairach Daemon Client can also be started via the command line.
PointtoTD is a CLI that sends a Talairach coordinate to the daemon and prints the returned labels to the terminal. The program is run as follows:
java -classpath talairach.jar org.brainmap.talairach.PointToTD 2, 15, 10, 12
In this example the 2 is the code for Talairach Atlas labels database, and 15,10,12 is the x-y-z coordinate.
A code of 1 will select the SP Maps database while a code of 3:n will perform a search around the coordinate in the Talairach Labels database in a range designated by n (e.g. 3:5 would be a 5x5x5 mm region).
ExceltoTD is a CLI that takes a tab-delimited text file containing any number of "x y z" coordinates for input, and creates a new tab-delimited text file with labels appended line-by-line with the coordinates. This file can be easily opened in a spreadsheet program (such as Microsoft Excel) for further analysis, sorting, etc. The program is run as follows:
java -classpath talairach.jar org.brainmap.talairach.ExcelToTD 2, Myfile.txt
In this example the 2 is the code for Talairach Atlas database and Myfile.txt is a tab delimited text file. A new file named Myfile.td is output. This file contains the original coordinates along with the 5 levels of labels for each coordinate. The 3:n search mode is supported with this application as well.
Talairach Daemon Client is the graphical client that includes the functionality of both CLI methods. The program is run as follows:
java -classpath talairach.jar org.brainmap.talairach.TalairachClient
Batch File Format
Before you begin searching you must create a text file with a list of the x-y-z Talairach coordinates that you want to label. The file "test.txt" is an example of the required format. The current version of the TD Java Search client will read files containing up to 40,000 records (x-y-z coordinates).Graphical Interface Instructions
Batch Processing:- Once file(s) are created for batch processing, select your file(s) using the "Open Input File" menu item or the "Choose File..." button. The number of coordinates will be printed in the information window.
- Press the "Search" button to begin. Several messages will be printed in the information window to inform you of the file loading progress. A progress bar is updated every 10th coordinate to give you an idea of how long it will take to retrieve all of the labels. As each label is retrieved it is appended to the output file along with the Talairach coordinates. The output file will be created dependent on the input file name (i.e. If your input file is test.txt, your output file will be test.td. Note the different extensions.)
- When all labels have been retrieved you are given the option to view the result file in the program's text area. Also, the result file can be viewed by any text editor or import it into a spreadsheet.
- Enter in your coordinates into the "Coordinate Search" fields for x, y, and z.
- Choose your options for processing (i.e. Single Point, Range Search or Nearest Gray Matter)
- Choose your options for saving to a file. If you want to save to a file, you must check the checkbox and pick a file. The file will stay open for writing as long as the Single Point Processing dialog is open. Once it closes, the file is closed. If the dialog is opened again for processing, you would need to pick another file for the next set of processing or the program will write over the current file.
- Click Search to process the point.
Suggested Uses
Brodmann Area (BA) Labels for Cortical Activations:
When seeking Brodmann Area labels for cortical activation sites it is possible to extend the search diameter to find the nearest BA label. For an experiment designed to activate the M1 mouth motor region only 38% of the sites were found to fall within Brodmann Areas, but as the search diameter was increased to 3 mm, 5 mm, and 7 mm, BA labels were obtained for 62%, 92%, and 100% of the sites. This example shows the utility of obtaining BA labels for cortical activation sites. While the appropriate search range may vary from site to site within the brain, this is easy to test. The current release of the Java TD client only supports the 5 mm search diameter, but ranges from 3-11 mm will be made available soon. As the search range increases the number of labels found increases. This presents two problemsto the user. First, the label retrieval process becomes much slower. For a 5x5x5 mm search range 125 voxels are searched and many labels are found. The TD client reduces the number of labels by only responding with unique labels. The unique labels are organized by incidence within the search range, with the highest label incidence being the first label returned. Along with each of the unique labels is the number of voxel within the search range with that label. Second, with large search ranges, the user has to deal with much larger files to sort through. The recommended strategy is to search with a small search region initially, remove coordinates with BA labels, and proceed using smaller input files for larger search ranges.
Anatomical Organization of Coordinate Data:
For application that provide Talairach coordinates (SPM, MEDx, etc.), it is helpful to use anatomical labels from the TD to organize findings anatomically. The data saved by the Java Talairach Daemon client can be used to create a labeled file. A common use of this labeled file is to open it in Excel and rearrange the original slice-ordered data into 3-D anatomical groupings by sorting by lobe and gyrus. This provides users with a good sense of which activation sites to group together anatomically.