Why don't you just fork (aka. background) them?
foo () {
local run=$1
fsl5.0-flirt -in $kar"deformed.nii.gz" -ref normtemp.nii.gz -omat $run".norm1.mat" -bins 256 -cost corratio -searchrx -90 90 -searchry -90 90 -searchrz -90 90 -dof 12
fsl5.0-flirt -in $run".poststats.nii.gz" -ref $kar"deformed.nii.gz" -omat $run".norm2.mat" -bins 256 -cost corratio -searchrx -90 90 -searchry -90 90 -searchrz -90 90 -dof 12
fsl5.0-convert_xfm -concat $run".norm1.mat" -omat $run".norm.mat" $run".norm2.mat"
fsl5.0-flirt -in $run".poststats.nii.gz" -ref normtemp.nii.gz -out $PWD/normFunc/$run".norm.nii.gz" -applyxfm -init $run".norm.mat" -interp trilinear
}
for run in $runList; do foo($run) &;"$run" & done
In case that's not clear, the significant part is here:
for run in $runList; do foo($run) &;"$run" & done
^
Causing the function to be executed in a forked shell in the background. That's parallel.