AUTOMATIC TRACT EXTRACTION VIA ATLAS BASED ADAPTIVE CONNECTIVITY-BASED CLUSTERING

摘要

Method and apparatus for processing diffusion data for identification of white matter tracts in the brain of a patient is provided herein. The method involves, with a processor: generating a connectivity based representation of white matter fibers for multiple different subjects from the connectivity signatures of the fibers from a diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) without using the physical coordinates of the fibers; generating a fiber bundle atlas from the connectivity based fiber representation of (a) which define a model of the human brain; adaptively clustering fibers of a new patient utilizing the fiber bundle atlas of (b) to extract white matter tracts without manual intervention in the form of drawing regions of interest; and presenting the selected white matter tracts and diffusion data in a report or on a display device. This method and apparatus can be used even for patients having edema or brain perturbations.

主权项

1. A method for processing diffusion data for identification of white matter tracts in the brain of a patient, said method comprising, with a processor:
(a) generating a connectivity based representation of white matter fibers for multiple different subjects from the connectivity signatures of the fibers from a diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) without using the physical coordinates of the fibers; (b) generating a fiber bundle atlas from the connectivity based fiber representation of (a) which define a model of the human brain; (c) adaptively clustering fibers of a new patient utilizing the fiber bundle atlas of (b) to extract white matter tracts; and (d) presenting the selected white matter tracts and diffusion data in a report or on a display device.