Facing the Challenge of Estimating Human Brain White Matter Pathways

Adelino R. Ferreira da Silva

2012

Abstract

Diffusion anisotropy has been used to characterize white matter neuronal pathways in the human brain, and infer global connectivity in the central nervous system. However, mapping complex fiber configurations in vivo remains a challenging task. We present a new methodology to reduce uncertainty in estimating the orientation of neuronal pathways in high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) reconstructions. The methodology relies on three main features. First, an optimized HARDI reconstruction technique based on the generalized q-sampling imaging approach is adopted. Second, directional statistics are used to estimate orientation distribution function (ODF) profile directions from data distributed on the unit sphere. Third, a modified streamline algorithm able to accommodate multiple fiber tracts and multiple orientations per voxel is used, to exploit the directional information gathered from estimated ODF profiles. The methodology has been tested on synthetic data simulations of crossing fibers and on a real data set.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

R. Ferreira da Silva A. (2012). Facing the Challenge of Estimating Human Brain White Matter Pathways . In Proceedings of the 4th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence - Volume 1: SSCN, (IJCCI 2012) ISBN 978-989-8565-33-4, pages 709-714. DOI: 10.5220/0004177207090714

in Bibtex Style

@conference{sscn12,
author={Adelino R. Ferreira da Silva},
title={Facing the Challenge of Estimating Human Brain White Matter Pathways},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 4th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence - Volume 1: SSCN, (IJCCI 2012)},
year={2012},
pages={709-714},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004177207090714},
isbn={978-989-8565-33-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 4th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence - Volume 1: SSCN, (IJCCI 2012)
TI - Facing the Challenge of Estimating Human Brain White Matter Pathways
SN - 978-989-8565-33-4
AU - R. Ferreira da Silva A.
PY - 2012
SP - 709
EP - 714
DO - 10.5220/0004177207090714