I think the issue may be the use of commas (,) instead of decimal points (.). You an convert it easily with
cat yourfsgd | sed 's/,/\./g' > yournewfsgd


On 1/12/2022 12:10 PM, Laura Willers de Souza wrote:

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Hello FreeSurfer Developers,

I want to perform an analysis of the difference between two groups in cortical thickness, having cortisol levels as covariate.

This is my model: cortical thickness ~ diagnosis (CU/CI) + plasma cortisol + diagnosis*plasma cortisol

I am now performing a glm dods analysis to see if the diagnosis*plasma cortisol interaction is significant.

I'm using this contrast: 0 0 1 -1

The fsgd file is attached. Cortisol values are converted to log.

But when I run the mri_glmfit command it gives the following error:


ERROR: matrix is ill-conditioned or badly scaled, condno = 1e+08

-------- ERROR: READ THIS -----------------
Possible problem with experimental design:
Check for duplicate entries and/or lack of range of continuous variables within a class.
If you seek help with this problem, make sure to send:
  1. Your command line: 
mri_glmfit --y lh.CU_CI_plasma.thickness.10.mgh --fsgd CU_CI_plasma.fsgd dods --C group-x-cortisol_pl.mtx --surf fsaverage lh --cortex --glmdir lh.CU_CI_plasma.glmdir --eres-save
  2. The terminal output of this program (ie, everything it prints to the screen)
  3. The FSGD file (CU_CI_plasma.fsgd) - ATTACHED
  4. The design matrix lh.CU_CI_plasma.glmdir/Xg.dat - ATTACHED
Attempting to diagnose further SumSq: Min=0.000000 (col 3), Max=22.135944 (col 2)
The scale is much different between columns 3 and 2, you may want to normalize by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation.
Column 3,  all values are 0
Column 4,  all values are 0
Columns 3 and 4 are the same


Could this error be because the n of the CU group is 54 and of the CI group is 490?


Thanks in advance!

Laura Willers de Souza 

Master Student in Biochemistry

Zimmer Lab - Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul 

Porto Alegre/RS - Brazil


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