4D DTI analysis via longitudinal modeling of tract diffusivities

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  Projects List

Key Investigators

Anuja Sharma, Bo Wang, Andrei Irimia, Micah Chambers, Jack Van Horn, Marcel Prastawa, Guido Gerig

Project Description

Objective

• Preliminary longitudinal evaluation of white matter diffusion changes along specific tracts in TBI subjects.
• Collaborate with the UCLA team to evaluate results and discuss improvements.

Approach, Plan

• Patient specific co-registration of acute and chronic DTI images.
• ROI based white matter tract extraction
• Assembling diffusion properties along tract in a space normalized fashion via a consistent mapping of tract geometry across timepoints.
• Evaluation of diffusion changes in white matter properties

Progress

• Preliminary workflow is ready. Details are provided in the following sections.
• Had collaborative meetings with the UCLA TBI team for discussion of current progress and future algorithm ideas. In particular, we focused on methodologies to quantify white matter changes along time in TBI patients.
• Resolved some TBI data issues with the help of Andrei Irimia (dicom conversion).
• Discussed possible registration options for DTI data in the context of TBI with Martin Styner (DTI Reg, DTI AtlasBuilder, ANTS).
• Got an insight into Slicer capabilities applicable to TBI from Ron.
• Attended the TBI DBP Meet.

Preliminary workflow for longitudinal evaluation of white matter changes in TBI

Acute

Chronic

ROI based tractography in resampled chronic image (post registration of FA images)

FA comparison (acute,chronic)

FA (at acute timepoint)

FA (at chronic timepoint)