title: Mathematical framework for simulating diffusion tensor MR neural fiber bundles.
abstract: White matter (WM) fiber tractography (i.e., the reconstruction of the 3D architecture of WM fiber pathways) is known to be an important application of diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI). For the quantitative evaluation of several fiber-tracking properties, such as accuracy, noise sensitivity, and robustness, synthetic ground-truth DT-MRI data are required. Moreover, an accurate simulated phantom is also required for optimization of the user-defined tractography parameters, and objective comparisons between fiber-tracking algorithms. Therefore, in this study a mathematical framework for simulating DT-MRI data, based on the physical properties of WM fiber bundles, is presented. We obtained a model of a WM fiber bundle by parameterizing the various features that characterize this bundle. We then evaluated three different synthetic DT-MRI models using experimental data in order to test the proposed methodology, and to determine the optimum model and parameter settings for constructing a realistic simulated DT-MRI phantom. Several examples of how the mathematical framework can be applied to compare fiber-tracking algorithms are presented.
authors.affiliation: Vision Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Antwerp, B-2020 Antwerp, Belgium. alexander.leemans@ua.ac.be
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leemans
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sijbers
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Verhoye
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van der Linden
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Van Dyck
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001717:Birds; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008433:Mathematics; D009412:Nerve Fibers; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity