What you can and cannot see using diffusion tensor MRI tractography

Peter J. Basser, Ph.D.
National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Bethesda, MD

Abstract

Diffusion Tensor MRI (DT-MRI) provides new microstructural information about the architectural organization of brain white matter in vivo, without requiring exogenous contrast agents. Early work focused on estimating scalar parameters derived from the diffusion tensor, which provided quantitative information about local diffusion properties (e.g., bulk diffusivity, diffusion anisotropy). More recently, emphasis has been placed on the directional information obtainable from DT-MRI data, primarily embodied in direction-encoded color maps and computed fiber tracts in brain white matter. While DT-MRI tractography offers new opportunities to elucidate white matter pathways, it is also subject to a number of artifacts that can produce spurious tract trajectories. Consequently, care must be exercised in performing tractography. An overview of tractography will be provided.

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