Using SPM with MATLAB Common Runtime

In order to use the standalone MCR version of spm, you need to ensure that the following commands are executed at the beginning of your script:

from nipype.interfaces import spm
matlab_cmd = '/path/to/run_spm8.sh /path/to/Compiler_Runtime/v713/ script'
spm.SPMCommand.set_mlab_paths(matlab_cmd=matlab_cmd, use_mcr=True)

you can test by calling:

spm.SPMCommand().version

If you want to enforce the standalone MCR version of spm for nipype globally, you can do so by setting the following environment variables:

SPMMCRCMD
Specifies the command to use to run the spm standalone MCR version. You may still override the command as described above.
FORCE_SPMMCR
Set this to any value in order to enforce the use of spm standalone MCR version in nipype globally. Technically, this sets the use_mcr flag of the spm interface to True.

Information about the MCR version of SPM8 can be found at:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/SPM/Standalone