title: Disentangling micro from mesostructure by diffusion MRI: A Bayesian approach.
abstract: Diffusion-sensitized magnetic resonance imaging probes the cellular structure of the human brain, but the primary microstructural information gets lost in averaging over higher-level, mesoscopic tissue organization such as different orientations of neuronal fibers. While such averaging is inevitable due to the limited imaging resolution, we propose a method for disentangling the microscopic cell properties from the effects of mesoscopic structure. We further avoid the classical fitting paradigm and use supervised machine learning in terms of a Bayesian estimator to estimate the microstructural properties. The method finds detectable parameters of a given microstructural model and calculates them within seconds, which makes it suitable for a broad range of neuroscientific applications.
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reisert
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Elias
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kellner
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Bibek
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dhital
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hennig
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Valerij G
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Kiselev
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D008959:Models, Neurological; D016501:Neurites; D066127:White Matter / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*
keywords: Axonal density; Diffusion MRI; Microstructural parameters; Microstructure imaging; Multi-shell dMRI; White matter