Sorry about leading you all down a rabbit trail with binning and down sampling. I admit I haven’t been exactly concise with my posts but glad the hints lead to places. I blame insomnia. 
The first question we need to ask is
– What are the native input properties of the scanner? That would be its optimal setting.
The next question we ask is
– What data resolution (spacial, temporal, etc.) and precision would best represent the thing being observed? There is usually a sweet spot: more or less information than necessary usually introduces more problems and therefore requires more considerations (time and energy).
This is why reading dozens if not hundreds of papers of previous research is vital and why I keep on pushing on my other points. The design of the experiment and research guide what we do.