Advances and challenges in fMRI and DTI techniques

Abstract During the past decade, neuroimaging has developed from a discipline practiced by a handful of researchers at a number of major institutions, to a methodology that is connected throughout the world on a day-by-day basis as a clinical device, and as the backbone of cognitive neuroscience examination. Neuroimaging provides objective information on the function and structure of the brain. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and computed tomography are the vital benchmarks in neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Efforts are made in this chapter to review MRI nuts and bolts, including quantitative methods used to assess brain structure integrity. MRI methods for assessing network connectivity of the brain using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are discussed in conjunction with the joint analysis of both. Since its improvement in the early 1990s, fMRI has taken the scientific world by storm. The foremost common strategy of fMRI takes advantage of the fact that when neurons within the brain become active, the amount of blood flowing through that region is increased. This phenomenon has been known for more than 100 years, in spite of the fact that the components that cause it are only partly understood. The signal measured in fMRI depends on this alteration in oxygenation and is alluded to as blood oxygenation-level dependent. However, DTI can detect the diffusion characteristics in each voxel; a natural expansion is to assess the diffusion relationship between adjacent voxels and ultimately collect the entire white matter fiber pathways within the brain.