Denoised diffusion spectrum imaging of white matter tracts in the brain stem

Abstract

High-angular resolution diffusion (HARDI) MRI, like diffusion spectrum imaging-DSI, provides an attractive tool to investigate the complex white matter structure in the brainstem. However, due to the application of high b-values in the HARDI image acquisition, the raw images are SNR limited (SNR<10). In this study, we applied a noveldenoising alogorithm to low-SNR DSI data. Our results showed that Generalized Anisotropy maps and tractography seeding the periacqueductal grey matter, a small structure in the mesencephalon, match more accurately the underlying anatomy when applying the denoising algorithm.

Publication
International Symposium on Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM'16)

Reference:

Granziera, C., A. Daducci, S. St-Jean, G. Krueger and M. Descoteaux. Denoised diffusion spectrum imaging of white matter tracts in the brain stem Proceedings of: International Symposium on Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM'16), 2016.