The development of a brain template for diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is crucial for comparisons of neuronal structural integrity and brain connectivity across populations, as well as for the development of a white matter atlas. Previous efforts to produce a DTI brain template have been compromised by factors related to image quality, the effectiveness of the image registration approach, the appropriateness of subject inclusion criteria, and the completeness and accuracy of the information summarized in the final template. The purpose of this work was to develop a DTI human brain template using techniques that address the shortcomings of previous efforts. Therefore, data containing minimal artifacts were first obtained on 67 healthy human subjects selected from an age-group with relatively similar diffusion characteristics (20-40 years of age), using an appropriate DTI acquisition protocol. Non-linear image registration based on mean diffusion-weighted and fractional anisotropy images was employed. DTI brain templates containing median and mean tensors were produced in ICBM-152 space and made publicly available. The resulting set of DTI templates is characterized by higher image sharpness, provides the ability to distinguish smaller white matter fiber structures, contains fewer image artifacts, than previously developed templates, and to our knowledge, is one of only two templates produced based on a relatively large number of subjects. Furthermore, median tensors were shown to better preserve the diffusion characteristics at the group level than mean tensors. Finally, white matter fiber tractography was applied on the template and several fiber-bundles were traced.
Pubmed ID: 19341801 RIS Download
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A free, open source software package for visualization and image analysis including registration, segmentation, and quantification of medical image data. Slicer provides a graphical user interface to a powerful set of tools so they can be used by end-user clinicians and researchers alike. 3D Slicer is natively designed to be available on multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac Os X. Slicer is based on VTK (http://public.kitware.com/vtk) and has a modular architecture for easy addition of new functionality. It uses an XML-based file format called MRML - Medical Reality Markup Language which can be used as an interchange format among medical imaging applications. Slicer is primarily written in C++ and Tcl.
View all literature mentionsAtlas that contains new anatomical, DTI, HARDI templates and probabilistic gray matter labels of the adult human brain in ICBM-152 space. Artifact-free MRI data from 72 human subjects was used in the development of the atlas. All diffusion MRI data collection was conducted using Turboprop, and spatial normalization was accomplished in a population-based fashion. A description of the contents of the atlas can be found in the Downloads link. NOTE: The files of the older IIT2 DTI Brain Template are still available. However, the new DTI template of the IIT Human Brain Atlas (v.3) is of superior quality and allows more accurate registration across subjects.
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