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Abstract #0773

ND-Track: Tractography Utilising Parametric Models of White Matter Fibre Orientation Dispersion

Matthew Rowe1, Hui Zhang1, Daniel C. Alexander1

1Department of Computer Science and Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, London, United Kingdom

We propose a new tractography algorithm leveraging parametric models of dispersion fit to diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging to guide streamline propagation probabilistically. Many current tractography techniques rely on a few discrete directions per voxel which can misrepresent the underlying anatomy, opening a risk of false negative connections. We test the algorithm on synthetic data and in vivo data of a human subject. The algorithm shows advantages in tracking through the corona radiata, a region of white matter known to exhibit a significant degree of fiber dispersion. We also demonstrate that the algorithm succeeds in tracking the major white matter pathways for which standard techniques work well.

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