Toward an accurate multi-fiber assessment strategy for clinical practice

Multi-tensor models provide information about the fiber bundles underlying characteristics and are of great interest for clinical applications. In this work we propose both a novel model fitting procedure and a novel acquisition scheme for multi-tensor assessment. Our fitting procedure includes the estimation of the diffusion of free water and ensures nondegenerate and regularized tensors. Our acquisition scheme combines spherical and cubic sampling. It enables the acquisition of multiple non-zero b-values which has been shown to be required for the full multi-tensor estimation. It enables high b-values to be acquired while achieving the same low echo time as a single-shell HARDI, leading to comparable geometrical and intensity distortion. We evaluate our resulting novel strategy CUSP-MFM (CUbe+SPhere Multi-Fiber Model) on both synthetic and clinical data. We show the ability of CUSPMFM of assessing complex fiber structures from short duration acquisitions, compatible with clinica...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: ISBI
• Authors: Benoit Scherrer, Simon K. Warfield
• Keywords: Fiber Model, Intensity Distortion, ISBI 2011, Medical Imaging, Single Shell