Modelling and Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Human Brain White Matter Architecture

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Diffusion tractography is a magnetic resonance technique that has the potential to describe the architecture and organisation of the white matter tracts of the human brain in vivo. There is a great deal of activity in this research area and much of it has been concerned with the resolution of crossing structures and the development of more sophisticated and more effective computer algorithms. One of the key issues that has yet to be addressed in fibre tractography is the question of fibre convergence and divergence within an image voxel. The main purpose of this grant proposal is to use computer modelling techniques simulating different fibre orientation populations within a voxel and to characterise the diffusion profiles arising from these populations. In so doing we shall attempt to model and thus account for intra voxel fibre dispersion of diffusion imaging data of the human brain. The developments described in this proposal should lead to improved tractography methodologies that will provide more accurate and detailed pictures of the architecture and organisation of the human brain obtained in vivo.