PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - H.-W. Chung
AU  - M.-C. Chou
AU  - C.-Y. Chen
TI  - Principles and Limitations of Computational Algorithms in Clinical Diffusion Tensor MR Tractography
AID  - 10.3174/ajnr.A2041
DP  - 2011 Jan 01
TA  - American Journal of Neuroradiology
PG  - 3--13
VI  - 32
IP  - 1
4099  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/32/1/3.short
4100  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/32/1/3.full
SO  - Am. J. Neuroradiol.2011 Jan 01; 32
AB  - SUMMARY: There have been numerous reports documenting the graphic reconstruction of 3D white matter architecture in the human brain by means of diffusion tensor MR tractography. Different from other reviews addressing the physics and clinical applications of DTI, this article reviews the computational principles of tractography algorithms appearing in the literature. The simplest voxel-based method and 2 widely used subvoxel approaches are illustrated first, together with brief notes on parameter selection and the restrictions arising from the distinct attributes of tract estimations. Subsequently, some advanced techniques attempting to offer improvement in various aspects are briefly introduced, including the increasingly popular research tracking tool using HARDI. The article explains the inherent technical limitations in most of the algorithms reported to date and concludes by providing a reference guideline for formulating routine applications of this important tool to clinical neuroradiology in an objective and reproducible manner. CCcorpus callosumDTIdiffusion tensor imagingFAfractional anisotropyHARDIhigh angular resolution diffusion imaging