Spherical deconvolution of high-dimensional diffusion MRI for improved microstructural imaging of the brain.

Multi-tissue spherical deconvolution of diffusion MRI (dMRI) is a popular analysis method that provides the full white matter fiber orientation density function as well as the densities of cerebrospinal fluid and grey matter tissue in the living human brain, completely noninvasively. It can be used to track the long-range connections of the brain and provides a tract-specific biomarker for neuronal loss in the study of neurodegenerative diseases. Currently, the technique can be regarded as a macroscopic approach: it breaks up the dMRI voxels in terms of tissues rather than cellular components, the latter being potentially more relevant biomarkers. Unfortunately, recent studies have demonstrated that conventional low-dimensional dMRI scans lack the information to resolve these microstructural features. In this proposal, I will take multi-tissue spherical deconvolution to the next (microscopic) level by leveraging high-dimensional dMRI scans. These next-generation scans have shown great promise to disentangle different microstructural compartments. The new multi-compartment spherical deconvolution approach will allow simultaneous estimation of a high quality axonal orientation density function as well as the densities of cell bodies and extracellular space. This will enable high-quality fiber tracking and at the same time provide more relevant biomarkers, and will help spherical deconvolution to maintain its position as one of the go-to tools for dMRI analysis.

Keywords:MEDICAL IMAGING

Disciplines:Scientific computing, Bioinformatics and computational biology, Multimedia processing, Biological system engineering, Signal processing, Public health care, Public health services

Project type:Collaboration project