Tractography Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) in 7T MRI

Hendry S. Cahaya,i Aditi Guha,i Tzu-Cheng Lee,i Cheng-Liang Liu,i and Zhixiang Zhang i
i. Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, UCSF, San Francisco, California 94107.

Background
Water diffusion in the brain tissue is affected by the presence of structural barriers to translational motion such as cell membranes and myelinated bers. Quantitatively, the restricted movement of water in tissue, can be modeled with an ellipsoidal shape tensor that is elongated along the axis of fastest diffusion but contracted along directions where diffusion is restricted. Using the estimated diffusion tensor at each voxel, the magnitude and the direction of diffusion can be derived from its eigenvalues and eigenvectors respectively. Quantitative brain map can then be evaluated from the measures of diffusion anisotropy, including fractional anisotropy (FA) and the apparent diffusion coefcient (ADC). The ADC value represents the presence of barriers to free diffusion in the volume. The FA value which ranges from 0 to 1, represents the direction of the diffusion movement. When diffusion is isotropic (no preferred direction), FA value is 0. Otherwise, an FA value of 1 represents a unidirectional movement (anisotropic diffusion). To complement the quantitative anisotropy brain map, a colored three-dimensional white matter tractography is generated to represent the diffusion intensity and direction. In this study, we explored the power of diffusion tensor imaging using a 7T MRI. We narrowed our DTI analysis on three main ber tracts, namely corpus callosum (CC), cortico-spinal tract (CST) and arcuate fasciculus (AF). Values obtain from FA and ADC were then compared with published literature. We also generated threedimensional tractography in tandem to harness our nding with substantial anatomical insights.

Results
Functional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefcient (ADC) values of three brain bers from four subjects. Neural bers selected are corpus callosum (CC), cortico-spinal tract (CST Left and CST Right), and arcuate fasciculus (AF Left and AF Right).

The column chart of the FA & ADC value in terms of different brain bers and subjects: (A) the statistic FA value among different brain bers. (B) the statistic FA value among different subjects. (C) the statistic ADC value among different brain bers. (D) the statistic ADC value among different subjects.
A. B.

Methods
Subjects Four normal subjects were recruited in the study (age range: 26~32 years; mean SD: 282.708 years; all right-handed male). Scan information MRI scans were performed on a 7.0 T MRI scanner (GE MR950). Both T2-weighted structure images and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were acquired with the same slice orientation and the same scan range. The T2-weighted images were acquired using CUBE T2 COR, TR/TE = 5950/62.5ms, image size = 512512, and slice thickness = 1mm. DTI was performed using a twice refocused balanced echo diffusion echo planar imaging with 55 diffusion-encoding gradient vectors, bmax = 2000 s/mm2 and TR/TE = 9000/83.5ms, image size = 256256. DTI with spatial resolution of 1 mm3 and 4256 transaxial slices were obtained within 20 minutes. Tractography reconstruction and parameter analysis Tractography was reconstructed using a streamline-based algorithm adapted for diffusion data using in-house software (DSI studio, http://dsi-studio.labsolver.org/). One of the decomposed ber vectors in the white matter pixels was used as a seed vector to produce one ber tract. A step of 0.5 pixels was tracked forward from the seed vector, and all vectors in the nearest voxels were evaluated to determine the proceeding orientation for the next step. A vector with closest orientation to the starting vector was chosen if it was within 45 deviation. Tracking stopped if no such vectors were found in the nearest voxels. The procedure of the ber tracking was iterated by randomly selecting the seed vectors in the pixels covering each association ber tract. Tractography was reconstructed based on a simple algorithm adapted for DTI data. Three main white matter tracts were reconstructed, including association ber: arcuate fasciculus (AF); commissural ber: corpus callosum (CC); projection ber: corticospinal tract (CST). The tractspecic analysis was performed based on the mean path of individual ber tract by the software. Fiber integrity along three ber tracts was quantied in terms of FA. Last, ADC value also calculated to present the properties of diffusion occurring within a particular voxel (volume picture element).

C.

D.

Box chart of the FA value in terms of different brain bers and subjects: the middle square represents the mean value, the up and down edges of the rectangle represents one standard deviation, the middle bar means the medium value, and the up and down rods represents the max and min value. (A) the statistic FA value among different brain bers. (B) the statistic ADC value among different brain bers.
A. B.

Brain Tractography

Summary
The random motion of water in tissues in inuenced by various cellular structures such as cell membranes, cytoskeletal proteins and other cellular macrostructures. DTI is a measurement of water diffusion in a living brain that takes into account various structural contributions that might impact the overall water diffusional process. DTI is sensitive to the tissue integrity, orientation and connectivity of the underlying nerve bers. From the estimated diffusion tensor at each volume, two metrics (FA and ADC) are obtained. Apparent diffusion coefcient (ADC) reports the presence of barriers to free diffusion in the volume. Fractional anisotropy (FA) reports the diffusional direction. Lower fractional anisotropy and higher mean diffusivity often indicate impaired ber integrity, but not always; depending on the cellular basis for the changes, abnormally high or low values may indicate dysfunction or may even confer an advantage. Tractography based on DTI allows visualization of the white matter ber bundles (tracts). Current DTI based tractography may still require a more ned-tuned ber tracking algorithm in order to resolve ber orientation heterogeneity for better visualization of crossing and dispersing white matter tracts. DTI and tractography are common tools to determine preclinical sign of disease from brain tumors to acute stroke. These tools are also used to discover genetic and environmental factors that affect disease progression and to evaluate treatment efcacy in longitudinal study.

Top panel: three ber tracts were selected for our study. They were corpus callosum (red), arcuate fasciculus (green) and cortico-spinal tract (blue). Bottom panel: We encountered an incidental nding from one of the volunteers. An arachnoid cyst was seen on the right anterior frontal lobe. The cyst has the same signal intensity as CSF. The right side ber projections that would normally radiate out appeared to be compressed, but not shortened. This nding nicely shows the concept of brain plasticity.