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System requirements & FAQ

System requirements

Requirement
Python 3.10 or newer
Operating system Linux and macOS are supported and tested. On Windows, use WSL2 — MRtrix3 and some dependencies are awkward to install natively.
Structural network mapping MRtrix3 on your PATH
Native-space masks Register to MNI first — see the spatial normalization guide (uses ANTsPy, installed separately)
Disk space Depends on the normative connectome you fetch (see below)

Disk space for normative connectomes

Connectome Used by Approx. size
GSP1000 Functional network mapping ~200 GB
HCP1065 Structural network mapping ~1.5 GB
dTOR985 full Structural network mapping ~11 GB
dTOR985 10% Structural network mapping ~1 GB
dTOR985 25% Structural network mapping ~3 GB

Frequently asked questions

My lesion masks aren't in MNI space. What do I do?

Lacuna requires masks in MNI152NLin6Asym or MNI152NLin2009cAsym. If yours are in native space, register them first — see the spatial normalization guide. Lacuna handles alignment between supported MNI spaces automatically, but it will not guess the space of a mask that carries no spatial information.

Do I need to download a connectome to try Lacuna?

No. Run focal damage first — it uses the bundled atlases and needs no download. Use lacuna tutorial my_dataset to generate a small synthetic dataset to experiment with.

Does fetching a connectome require an account or API key?

It depends on the source:

  • GSP1000 (functional) — requires a free Harvard Dataverse API key.
  • HCP1065 (structural) — no key required.
  • dTOR985 full (structural) — requires a Figshare API key.
  • dTOR985 10% (structural) — no key required.
  • dTOR985 25% (structural) — no key required.

Provide keys via the --api-key flag, an environment variable (DATAVERSE_API_KEY / FIGSHARE_API_KEY), or ~/.config/lacuna/config.yaml. See the fetch CLI reference for details.

Should I use FNM or AFNM?

Both compute the functional network of a lesion. Use the standard functional network mapping when you need a voxel-resolution map; use the accelerated version when you are processing many subjects and a parcel-resolution result is sufficient.

How do I process a whole cohort?

Point lacuna run at a BIDS dataset root rather than a single mask, or use batch_process from the Python API. See the getting started tutorial.

How do I cite Lacuna?

See CITATION.cff in the repository.