Title :
Modified Fast Marching Tractography Algorithm and Its Ability to Detect Fibre Crossing
Author :
Dargi, F. ; Oghabian, M.A. ; Ahmadian, A. ; Zadeh, H.S. ; Zarei, M. ; Boroomand, A.
Author_Institution :
Univ. of Tehran, Tehran
Abstract :
White matter fibre tractography is a non-invasive method for reconstructing three dimensional trajectories of fibre pathways. Fast Marching is one of fibre tracking methods in which co-linearity of principal eigenvectors determines the speed of front´s evolution. In this algorithm effect of tensor´s eigenvalues are not considered. In the current work, the speed function of standard fast marching was modified by considering the strength of tensor´s eigenvectors. The proposed speed function has an adaptive Fractional Anisotropy (FA) weighted factor which can be set by type of brain´s environments (i.e. isotropic and anisotropic regions). This modification was found to have high accuracy for detecting fibres by reducing false pathways. The proposed method has performed high accuracy in detection of fibre crossing.
Keywords :
biomedical MRI; brain; image reconstruction; medical image processing; neurophysiology; adaptive fractional anisotropy weighted factor; brain; diffusion tensor imaging; fibre crossing detection; fibre pathways; modified fast marching tractography algorithm; principal eigenvectors; white matter fibre tractography; Anisotropic magnetoresistance; Biomedical engineering; Biomedical imaging; Differential equations; Diffusion tensor imaging; Image reconstruction; Minimization methods; Neural pathways; Physics; Tensile stress; Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI); FA Weighted Fast Marching (FAW-FM); Fast Marching (FM); Fibre crossing; adaptive weighted factor; fibre tractography; Algorithms; Anisotropy; Brain; Computer Simulation; Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Echo-Planar Imaging; Humans; Nerve Fibers;
Conference_Titel :
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2007. EMBS 2007. 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
Lyon
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-0787-3
DOI :
10.1109/IEMBS.2007.4352288