diff --git a/figures/Schmidt2018_dyn/compute_bold_signal.py b/figures/Schmidt2018_dyn/compute_bold_signal.py
index ac72a790db177e98733d05980fb3da277e17d855..9c249e0127648771991b9737964bb2eaca73a56b 100644
--- a/figures/Schmidt2018_dyn/compute_bold_signal.py
+++ b/figures/Schmidt2018_dyn/compute_bold_signal.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import numpy as np
 import os
+import subprocess
 import sys
 
 
@@ -32,7 +33,6 @@ fn = os.path.join(load_path,
                   'synaptic_input_{}.npy'.format(area))
 synaptic_input = np.load(fn)
 
-
 def bold_R_parser(fn):
     f = open(fn, 'r')
     # skip first line
@@ -51,7 +51,10 @@ out_fn = os.path.join(save_path,
                       'bold_syn_input_{}.txt'.format(area))
 
 np.savetxt(fn, synaptic_input / np.max(synaptic_input))
-os.system('Rscript --vanilla compute_bold_signal.R {} {}'.format(fn, out_fn))
+try:
+    subprocess.run(['Rscript', '--vanilla', 'compute_bold_signal.R {} {}'.format(fn, out_fn)])
+except FileNotFoundError:
+    raise FileNotFoundError("Executing R failed. Did you install R?")
 
 bold_signal = bold_R_parser(out_fn)
 fn = os.path.join(save_path,