Tractography

Tractography
Tractography of human brain
Purposeused to visually represent nerve tracts
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In neuroscience, tractography is a 3D modeling technique used to visually represent nerve tracts using data collected by diffusion MRI.[1] It uses special techniques of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer-based diffusion MRI. The results are presented in two- and three-dimensional images called tractograms.[2]

In addition to the long tracts that connect the brain to the rest of the body, there are complicated neural circuits formed by short connections among different cortical and subcortical regions. The existence of these tracts and circuits has been revealed by histochemistry and biological techniques on post-mortem specimens. Nerve tracts are not identifiable by direct exam, CT, or MRI scans. This difficulty explains the paucity of their description in neuroanatomy atlases and the poor understanding of their functions.

The most advanced tractography algorithm can produce 90% of the ground truth bundles, but it still contains a substantial amount of invalid results.[3]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Basser_2000 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Catani M, Thiebaut De Schotten M (2012). Atlas of Human Brain Connections. doi:10.1093/med/9780199541164.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-954116-4.[page needed]
  3. ^ Maier-Hein KH, Neher PF, Houde JC, Côté MA, Garyfallidis E, Zhong J, et al. (November 2017). "The challenge of mapping the human connectome based on diffusion tractography". Nature Communications. 8 (1): 1349. Bibcode:2017NatCo...8.1349M. doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01285-x. PMC 5677006. PMID 29116093.