A system and method are provided for analysing a functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan representing a time-sequence, comprising t time points, of images comprising v voxels, where each scan can be represented by a data matrix X ∈ ℝ t x v . The method comprises modelling the scan data X as the convolution of neural activation time courses N ∈ ℝ + t x v and a haemodynamic filter Ψ, and performing an inverse operation to estimate N from X and Ψ. The method further comprises decomposing the neural activation time courses N into multiple brain network components by representing N as the product of a first matrix H defining, for each component, a spatial map of the voxels belonging to that component, and a second matrix W defining, for each component, the time sequence of activation of that component during the scan. In other implementations, the matrix decomposition may be performed before the deconvolution.
APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ANALYSING FUNCTIONAL MRI DATA