K. Sakai, T. Azuma, K. Koyamada, and S. Tsutsumi (Japan)
: DT-MRI, brain, white matter, neural pathway, start point
Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) is a technique used to measure the anistropic diffusion properties of the water molecules in an organism. DT-MRI has proven efficient for the diagnosis of brain diseases such as cerebral infarctions, brain tumors, and variable cases. With the exception of some computer visualization techniques, the dissection is currently the only way to obtain the visible information of neural pathways in the brain white matter. There is a computer visualization technique called “tractography” which allows the user to visualize neural pathways from DT-MRI data without the need for an invasion into the brain. To draw a neural pathway there is a need to specify the starting point and the ending point of this pathway. These points are normally set manually by user according to their own desires and intentions, because there is no fixed guideline. The neural pathway drawing by tracking the vector field can be greatly influenced by the starting point selection. Therefore, an accurate drawing is not guaranteed. In this paper, we propose a neural pathway drawing method which utilizes neighboring area of singular points as starting points in order to minimize the tracking error.
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