Myelin fiber orientation mapping based on diffusion weighted MR images

The anisotropic diffusion of water molecules in white matter in the brain has been correlated to the basic symmetry of the myelin fibers: water diffuses more readily along the fiber direction than perpendicular to it. Diffusion sensitized magnetic resonance imaging can be used for studying the myelin fiber orientation. In this work, we present a new method for exploiting this type of information in order to map the fiber orientations in the image plane.