Title :
Topological Visualization of Brain Diffusion MRI Data
Author :
Schultz, Thomas ; Theisel, Holger ; Seidel, Hans-Peter
Author_Institution :
MPI Inf., Saarbrucken
Abstract :
Topological methods give concise and expressive visual representations of flow fields. The present work suggests a comparable method for the visualization of human brain diffusion MRI data. We explore existing techniques for the topological analysis of generic tensor fields, but find them inappropriate for diffusion MRI data. Thus, we propose a novel approach that considers the asymptotic behavior of a probabilistic fiber tracking method and define analogs of the basic concepts of flow topology, like critical points, basins, and faces, with interpretations in terms of brain anatomy. The resulting features are fuzzy, reflecting the uncertainty inherent in any connectivity estimate from diffusion imaging. We describe an algorithm to extract the new type of features, demonstrate its robustness under noise, and present results for two regions in a diffusion MRI dataset to illustrate that the method allows a meaningful visual analysis of probabilistic fiber tracking results.
Keywords :
biodiffusion; biomedical MRI; brain; data visualisation; feature extraction; medical image processing; probability; tracking; brain diffusion MRI data visualization; feature extraction; generic tensor fields; probabilistic fiber tracking method; topological visualization; Algorithm design and analysis; Anatomy; Brain; Data visualization; Humans; Magnetic resonance imaging; Noise robustness; Tensile stress; Topology; Uncertainty; Diffusion tensor; probabilistic fiber tracking; tensor topology; uncertainty visualization.; Algorithms; Brain; Computer Graphics; Computer Simulation; Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Humans; Image Enhancement; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; Models, Biological; Models, Statistical; Nerve Fibers, Myelinated; Neural Pathways; Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity and Specificity; User-Computer Interface;
Journal_Title :
Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TVCG.2007.70602