Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Distance-based tractography in high angular resolution diffusion MRI

  • Original Article
  • Published:
The Visual Computer Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

High angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, determining the diffusion of water molecules in tissue in vivo. HARDI is advantageous over the well-known diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), since it is able to extract more than one fiber orientation within a voxel and can therefore resolve crossing, kissing or fanning fiber tracts. However, multiple orientations per voxel require more sophisticated tractography approaches. In this paper we introduce a new deterministic fiber tracking method using the complete orientation distribution function (ODF) reconstructed from Q-ball imaging to enable tractography in challenging regions. Anisotropy classifiers are used to differentiate intra-voxel fiber populations and adjust a curvature threshold for one and multiple fiber configurations, respectively. In addition, we determine the most appropriate propagation direction in complex white matter regions, using the course of the current tract. To ensure tractography running within fiber bundles, a distance-based approach is integrated, which aims to maintain the initial distance of the seed point to the white matter boundary through the whole tracking. We evaluated our method using a phantom dataset featuring crossing, kissing and fanning fiber configurations and a human brain dataset, reconstructing the fanning of the corpus callosum and considering the region of the centrum semiovale.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Aganj, I., Lenglet, C., Sapiro, G.: Odf reconstruction in q-ball imaging with solid angle consideration. In: IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging: From Nano to Macro, ISBI ’09 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Assemlal, H.E., Tschumperlé, D., Brun, L.: Fiber tracking on HARDI data using robust odf fields. In: IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, pp. 133–136 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Basser, P.J., Pajevic, S., Pierpaoli, C., Duda, J., Aldroubi, A.: In vivo fiber tractography using dt-MRI data. Magn. Reson. Med. 44(4), 625–632 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Behrens, T., Johansen-Berg, H., Jbabdi, S., Rushworth, M., Woolrich, M.: Probabilistic diffusion tractography with multiple fibre orientations: what can we gain? NeuroImage 34(1), 144–155 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Berman, J.I., Chung, S., Mukherjee, P., Hess, C.P., Han, E.T., Henry, R.G.: Probabilistic streamline q-ball tractography using the residual bootstrap. NeuroImage 39 (2008)

  6. Campbell, J.S.W., Siddiqi, K., Rymar, V.V., Sadikot, A.F., Pike, B.G.: Flow-based fiber tracking with diffusion tensor and q-ball data: validation and comparison to principal diffusion direction techniques. NeuroImage 27(4), 725–736 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Chao, Y.P., Chen, J.H., Cho, K.H., Yeh, C.H., Chou, K.H., Lin, C.P.: A multiple streamline approach to high angular resolution diffusion tractography. Med. Eng. Phys. 30 (2008)

  8. Chen, Y., Guo, W., Zeng, Q., Yan, X., Huang, F., Zhang, H., He, G., Vemuri, B.C., Liu, Y.: Estimation, smoothing, and characterization of apparent diffusion coefficient profiles from high angular resolution dwi. Comput. Vis. Pattern Recognit. 1, 588–593 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Descoteaux, M., Angelino, E., Fitzgibbons, S., Deriche, R.: Regularized, fast and robust analytical q-ball imaging. Magn. Reson. Med. 58, 497–510 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Descoteaux, M., Deriche, R., Knösche, T.R., Anwander, A.: Stic and probabilistic tractography based on complex fibre orientation distributions. IEEE Trans. Med. Imag. 28 (2009)

  11. Fillard, P., Descoteaux, M., Goh, A., Gouttard, S., Jeurissen, B., Malcolm, J., Ramirez-Manzanares, A., Reisert, M., Sakaie, K., Tensaouti, F., Yo, T., Mangin, J.F., Poupon, C.: Quantitative evaluation of 10 tractography algorithms on a realistic diffusion mr phantom. NeuroImage (2011, in press)

  12. Goh, A.: Deterministic tractography using orientation distribution functions estimated with probability density constraints and spatial regularity. In: LNAO (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Gray, H.: Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body (1918)

  14. Jeurissen, B., Leemans, A., Tournier, J.D., Sijbers, J.: Fiber tracking on the fiber cup phantom using constrained spherical deconvolution. In: LNAO (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Lazar, M., Weinstein, D.M., Tsuruda, J.S., Hasan, K.M., Arfanakis, K., Meyerand, M.E., Badie, B., Rowley, H.A., Haughton, V., Field, A., Alexander, A.L.: White matter tractography using diffusion tensor deflection. Hum. Brain Mapp. 18 (2003). doi:10.1002/hbm.10102

  16. Merhof, D., Sonntag, M., Enders, F., Nimsky, C., Hastreiter, P., Greiner, G.: Hybrid visualization for white matter tracts using triangle strips and point sprites. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 12, 1181–1188 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Mori, S., Crain, B.J., Chacko, V., van Zijl, P.C.M.: Three-dimensional tracking of axonal projections in the brain by magnetic resonance imaging. Magn. Reson. Imag. 45 (1999)

  18. Özarslan, E., Shepherd, T.M., Vemuri, B.C., Blackband, S.J., Mareci, T.H.: Resolution of complex tissue microarchitecture using the diffusion orientation transform (DOT). NeuroImage 31(3), 1086–1103 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Perrin, M., Poupon, C., Cointepas, Y., Rieul, B., Golestani, N., Pallier, C., RiviFre, D., Constantinesco, A., Le Bihan, D., Mangin, J.F.: Fiber tracking in q-ball fields using regularized particle trajectories. In: Information Processing in Medical Imaging (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Poupon, C., LaribiFre, L., Tournier, G., Bernard, J., Fournier, D., Fillard, P., Descoteaux, M., Mangin, J.F.: A diffusion hardware phantom looking like a coronal brain slice. In: ISMRM (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Poupon, C., Poupon, F., Allirol, L., Mangin, J.F.: A database dedicated to anatomo-functional study of human brain connectivity. In: 12th HBM Neuroimage, Florence, Italy, p. 646 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Poupon, C., Rieul, B., Kezele, I., Perrin, M., Poupon, F., Mangin, J.F.: New diffusion phantoms dedicated to the study and validation of hardi models. Magn. Reson. Med. 60(6), 1276–1283 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Prčkovska, V., Vilanova, A., Poupon, C., Haar Romeny, B.M., Descoteaux, M.: Fast classification scheme for HARDI data simplification. In: ICT Innovations 2009, pp. 345–355 (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  24. Frank, R.L.: Characterization of anisotropy in high angular resolution diffusion-weighted MRI. Magn. Reson. Med. 47, 1083–1099 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Röttger, D., Seib, V., Müller, S.: Mfc: a morphological fiber classification approach. Inf. Aktuell 364–368 (2011). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-19335-4_75

  26. Savadjiev, P., Campbell, J.S.W., Descoteaux, M., Deriche, R., Pike, G.B., Siddiqi, K.: Labeling of ambiguous sub-voxel fibre bundle configurations in high angular resolution diffusion MRI. NeuroImage 41, 58–68 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Tournier, J.D., Calamante, F., Connelly, A.: Robust determination of the fibre orientation distribution in diffusion MRI: non-negativity constrained super-resolved spherical deconvolution. NeuroImage 35(4), 1459–1472 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Tournier, J.D., Calamante, F., Gadian, D.G., Connelly, A.: Direct estimation of the fiber orientation density function from diffusion-weighted MRI data using spherical deconvolution. NeuroImage 23 (2004)

  29. Tuch, D.S.: Diffusion MRI of complex tissue structure. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2002)

  30. Tuch, D.S.: Q-ball imaging. Magn. Reson. Med. 52(6), 1358–1372 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Wedeen, V., Reese, T., Tuch, D., Weigel, M., Dou, J.G., Weiskoff, R., Chessler, D.: Mapping fiber orientation spectra in cerebral white matter with Fourier-transform diffusion MRI. In: Proc. Intl. Sot. Mag. Reson. Med., vol. 8 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Wedeen, V., Wang, R., Schmahmann, J., Benner, T., Tseng, W., Dai, G., Pandya, D., Hagmann, P., D’Arceuil, H., de Crespigny, A.: Diffusion spectrum magnetic resonance imaging (dsi) tractography of crossing fibers. NeuroImage 41 (2008)

  33. Weinstein, D., Kindlmann, G., Lundberg, E.: Tensorlines: advection-diffusion based propagation through diffusion tensor fields. In: 10th IEEE Visualization (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Zhukov, L., Barr, A.H.: Oriented tensor reconstruction: Tracing neural pathways from diffusion tensor MRI. In: IEEE Visualization (2002)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Graphics Research Group, University of Koblenz-Landau, Universitaetsstrasse 1, 56070, Koblenz, Germany

    Diana Röttger, Viktor Seib & Stefan Müller

Authors
  1. Diana Röttger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Viktor Seib
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Stefan Müller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Diana Röttger.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Röttger, D., Seib, V. & Müller, S. Distance-based tractography in high angular resolution diffusion MRI. Vis Comput 27, 729–738 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-011-0587-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-011-0587-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation