What is diffuse tensor imaging used for?
Diffusion tensor imaging tractography, or DTI tractography, is an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) technique that measures the rate of water diffusion between cells to understand and create a map of the body’s internal structures; it is most commonly used to provide imaging of the brain.
What can diffusion tensor imaging DTI reveal about the brain?
Abstract. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a novel imaging technique that can reveal non-invasively unique information of white matter (WM) microstructures within the central nervous system (CNS). DTI provides image contrast based on differences in the magnitude of diffusion of water molecules within the brain.
Is diffusion tensor imaging accurate?
DTI values in combination showed the strongest diagnostic accuracy for predicting the presence of anal contraction (AD, RD; ROC AUC=0.90), deep anal pressure (FA; ROC AUC=0.88), S4-5 sensation (FA, RD; ROC AUC=0.93), motor level (FA, AD, RD; ROC AUC=0.92) and MRI level (FA, AD, RD; ROC AUC=0.92).
What is diffusion tensor imaging white matter?
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is one of the most popular and widely used (1) MRI techniques in brain research to describe the orientation of white matter fibers. The process of fiber tracking, called tractography, allows for a virtual dissection and three-dimensional representation of white matter tracts (2).
What is diffusion restriction?
Restricted diffusion is seen as high-signal intensity on DWI with corresponding reduced apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values. ADC is a measurement of the diffusion of water molecules in a given tissue.
What is tensor in DTI?
A three-dimensional diffusion model (the tensor) is then estimated by repeating this process in multiple directions. In other words, the DTI technique involves the delivery of external magnetic pulses to impose a random phase shift for water molecules that diffuse.
How does a DTI scan work?
In other words, the DTI technique involves the delivery of external magnetic pulses to impose a random phase shift for water molecules that diffuse. This leads to a loss of signal from diffusing molecules, which subsequently creates darker volumetric pixels or voxels.
What diseases can DTI detect?
CLINICAL APPLICATIONS OF DTI
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
- Multiple sclerosis.
- Neurodegenerative disorders: Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s dementia.
- Epilepsy.
- Stroke.
- Traumatic brain injury.
- Spinal cord injury.
- Major depressive disorder.
What is diffusion tensor imaging in MRI?
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) detects the white matter fibers that connect different parts of the brain. These imaging studies help to map specific brain areas before surgery.
Whats the difference between DWI and DTI?
While DWI refers to the contrast of the acquired images, DTI is a specific type of modeling of the DWI datasets.
Is diffusion tensor imaging invasive?
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a non-invasive imaging technique implemented in MRI (Basser et al., 1994), which can detect WM alterations that are not visible using conventional imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT) and MRI (Arfanakis et al., 2002; Hulkower et al., 2013).
What is the difference between DTI and MRI?
The MRI scanner measures this signal difference and displays the activity as a colored area (Fig. 1). Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is a technique that detects how water travels along the white matter tracts in the brain (Fig. 2).
What is the diffusion tensor?
What is the diffusion tensor? How is this different from “regular” diffusion? The diffusion tensor was briefly discussed in a previous Q&A where the concept of diffusion anisotropy was introduced. Biological tissues are highly anisotropic, meaning that their diffusion rates are not the same in every direction.
What is diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)?
A brief history of DTI and its impact on clinical research The diffusion tensor was originally proposed for use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by Peter Basser in 1994 [5, 6]. Before DTI, diffusion MRI [7, 8] had developed from research in diffusion nuclear magnetic resonance [9].
How do you interpret diffusivity measures from the diffusion tensor?
These measures are interpreted as diffusivity parallel to and perpendicular to a white matter fiber tract, so they make the most sense in regions of coherently oriented axons with no fiber crossings. Often in scientific studies, the reported measures from the diffusion tensor are not independent.
How do you model diffusion in complex materials?
A superior method to model diffusion in complex materials is to use the diffusion tensor, a [3 x 3] array of numbers corresponding to diffusion rates in each combination of directions. The three diagonal elements ( D xx, D yy, D zz) represent diffusion coefficients measured along each of the principal ( x-, y- and z -) laboratory axes.