Image reconstruction was performed using an iterative phase correction method in IDL that minimizes signal-loss artifacts in EPI [29]. The first four volumes in the time series were discarded to avoid non-equilibrium effects in the fMRI signal. Subsequent analyses were performed with the statistical parametric mapping package SPM2 (Welcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London UK). The images were motion corrected with a 12-parameter affine transformation, spatially normalized to the standard brain (using a 12-parameters affine transformation with medium regularization and 16-nonlinear iterations and voxel size of 3×3×3 mm3), and smoothed (8-mm full-width-half-maximum Gaussian kernel). Note that spatial normalization to the stereotactic space was carried out using the standard SPM2 EPI template.
