Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Tractography of Human Brain Development

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Conventional MR imaging of human brain maturation

MR imaging has revolutionized the noninvasive scientific investigation of human brain maturation as well as the clinical evaluation of disorders of the developing brain in pediatric neuroradiology. The signal intensity changes on T1-weighted and T2-weighted images during brain development are thought to result from decreases in brain water content and increases in the concentration of macromolecules, such as myelin [1], [2]. In particular, T1 and T2 relaxation times become shorter as

Diffusion-weighted MR imaging of human brain maturation

Diffusion MR imaging is sensitive to the microscopic motion of water molecules in biologic tissues [15]. In scientific research studies and in clinical assessment of the human brain, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is most commonly acquired with a single-shot spin echo echoplanar pulse sequence using Stejskal-Tanner pulsed diffusion gradients. The strength of the diffusion gradient is largely a function of the gradient amplitude and duration and can be expressed as the diffusion-weighting

Basic principles of diffusion tensor imaging

DTI methodology has been extensively reviewed elsewhere, including the underlying mathematic theory, image acquisition, postprocessing, and visualization [21], [22], [23]. The reader is referred to these sources for more detail than that presented herein. The diffusion tensor is a 3 × 3 matrix of vectors that is used in DTI to describe the 3D distribution of water motion at each spatial location (ie, voxel) in the MR image [24], [25]. Because there are six independent elements of the diffusion

Basic principles of three-dimensional diffusion tensor tractography

Because white matter pathways in the brain exist in three dimensions, even sophisticated 2D representations, such as directionally encoded color anisotropy maps, are intrinsically limited. Moreover, these color anisotropy maps cannot differentiate adjacent white matter tracts that have the same fiber orientation. These obstacles can be overcome with 3D fiber tractography. There are many different techniques for performing fiber tractography that have been described in the literature. The first

Emerging pediatric clinical applications

Although still largely at a preliminary stage, the potential clinical utility of DTI and fiber tractography are being explored in nearly every aspect of pediatric neuroradiology. It is beyond the scope of this article on DTI and fiber tractography of human brain development to review exhaustively the rapidly burgeoning literature on emerging pediatric clinical applications of DTI. In the space remaining, we briefly highlight a few notable areas in which DTI has been productively applied to the

Acknowledgments

Dr. Mukherjee thanks Dr. Jim Barkovich, Dr. Dan Vigneron, and the rest of his clinical and scientific colleagues at the University of California at San Francisco, who are all working together to advance pediatric neuroimaging. Images from the NIH MRI Study of Normal Brain Development are provided courtesy of the Brain Development Cooperative Group (Available at: http://www.brain-child.org).

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    Ongoing support from National Institutes of Health Grants 1R01NS046432, 2R01NS037357, 1N01NS92319, and 1P30NS048056, as well as from the Neuroradiology Education and Research Foundation is acknowledged.

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