Comparing the carbon footprint of fMRI data processing and analysis approaches

We compared the carbon emissions of preprocessing and statistical analysis of fMRI data in software packages FSL, SPM, and fMRIPrep using an existing open access dataset. Carbon emissions for fMRIPrep were 30x larger than those of FSL, and 23x those of SPM. We also compared the scientific performance of each package, reflected by sensitivity to statistical activation. Overall, fMRIPrep demonstrated slightly superior statistical sensitivity to both FSL and SPM, with FSL also outperforming SPM. However, this pattern varied by brain region. Researchers analysing fMRI data can use these findings to inform their choice of software package, considering the carbon footprint of data processing alongside usability and quality of derived output. Researchers should be conscious of how and when tools that elicit heavy compute are used, minimising energy usage and subsequent file size when possible. Researchers developing and using such tools should consider the extent to which computationally expensive steps are necessary to produce high-quality results.