title: LABELING WHITE MATTER TRACTS IN HARDI BY FUSING MULTIPLE TRACT ATLASES WITH APPLICATIONS TO GENETICS.
abstract: Accurate identification of white matter structures and segmentation of fibers into tracts is important in neuroimaging and has many potential applications. Even so, it is not trivial because whole brain tractography generates hundreds of thousands of streamlines that include many false positive fibers. We developed and tested an automatic tract labeling algorithm to segment anatomically meaningful tracts from diffusion weighted images. Our multi-atlas method incorporates information from multiple hand-labeled fiber tract atlases. In validations, we showed that the method outperformed the standard ROI-based labeling using a deformable, parcellated atlas. Finally, we show a high-throughput application of the method to genetic population studies. We use the sub-voxel diffusion information from fibers in the clustered tracts based on 105-gradient HARDI scans of 86 young normal twins. The whole workflow shows promise for larger population studies in the future.
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles CA, 90095 USA.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles CA, 90095 USA.
authors.forename: Yonggang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles CA, 90095 USA.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.affiliation: University of Queensland, Brisbane St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Greig I
authors.initials: GI
authors.lastname: de Zubicaray
authors.affiliation: University of Queensland, Brisbane St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Katie L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: McMahon
authors.affiliation: Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Herston, QLD 4029, Australia.
authors.forename: Nicholas G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Herston, QLD 4029, Australia.
authors.forename: Margaret J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles CA, 90095 USA.
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Thompson
keywords: Fiber Clustering; Genetic Heritability; HARDI; Label Fusion; Tractography