Following discussions at work, we decided that it would be useful to have a reference source for the relative performance of Matlab on different platforms. The motivation for this was the use of the SPM software in our department - which is a highly processor and disk intensive application. Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) is "public domain" software, created by the academic staff at the Functional Imaging Laboratory of the Institute of Neurology - University College London (http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk). The software has many uses, but its main applications are to statistical inference using functional neuroimaging data, such as that acquired with positron emission tomography (PET) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); or for voxel based morphometry (VBM).

Crucially, the SPM software has an associated user group communicating via email, which enabled me to request benchmarking information from the various SPM/Matlab users around the world. Without their co-operation this would have been an impossible task, so a big thank you to all of the contributors (who are listed at the end).

JCWB February 2002