Geodesic Fiber Tracking in White Matter using Activation Function

TL;DR

This paper improves geodesic fiber tracking in white matter by proposing new metrics and algorithm modifications that enhance robustness to noise, better handle fiber crossings, and preserve crossing angles, based on diffusion tensor imaging.

Contribution

It introduces novel metric rescaling and algorithm enhancements for geodesic fiber tracking, improving accuracy and robustness in white matter reconstruction.

Findings

Enhanced robustness to noise in fiber tracking

Better handling of crossing fibers with fourth-order tensors

Preservation of crossing angles in reconstructed fibers

Abstract

The geodesic ray-tracing method has shown its effectiveness for the reconstruction of fibers in white matter structure. Based on reasonable metrics on the spaces of the diffusion tensors, it can provide multiple solutions and get robust to noise and curvatures of fibers. The choice of the metric on the spaces of diffusion tensors has a significant impact on the outcome of this method. Our objective is to suggest metrics and modifications of the algorithms leading to more satisfactory results in the construction of white matter tracts as geodesics. Starting with the DTI modality, we propose to rescale the initially chosen metric on the space of diffusion tensors to increase the geodetic cost in the isotropic regions. This change should be conformal in order to preserve the angles between crossing fibers. We also suggest enhancing the methods to be more robust to noise and employing the fourth-order tensor data in order to handle the fiber crossings properly.