Diffusion MRI Fiber Tractography

Abstract “Tractography” refers to the process of digitally reconstructing the spatial trajectories of elongated thin structures based on a continuous field of local orientation data; most commonly in reference to white matter axons within the central nervous system based on a diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) model. This technology provides a unique capacity to investigate the long-distance connectional structure of such biology both in vivo and noninvasively. This chapter describes the basic principles behind the near-ubiquitous “streamlines” approach to tractography (which has remained relatively unchanged for 20 years) as well as some modern advancements to such, with a particular emphasis on the quantitative capabilities of this technology.