Can single-echo data be separated from multi-echo data?

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Hi！

I acquired a series of multi-echo fMRI data, with four echoes in each TR.

I would like to know whether all the data corresponding to a certain TE value in this series of data can be separated and analyzed as single echo data.

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Sure. If you organized your data according to BIDS, you can choose the TE closest to a typical TE for your magnet’s strength (e.g., 30 ms for 3T) and remove the echo- entity from the filenames.

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As @tsalo notes, each TE is typically a separate file and you can just select one to analyze. That said, if you have multiple echoes, there are fancier analysis methods, but taking the average or weighted-average of the echoes is fairly simple and should improve results. A common weighted-average is sometimes call the “optimal combination” and can be calculated in tedana, AFNI, and other packages.