Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) provides a unique approach to probing the microstructure of biological tissues noninvasively and DTI-based tractography is an irreplaceable tool to measure anatomical connectivity in human brain in vivo. However, due to the limitations of DTI techniques and tractography algorithms, tracked pathways might not be completely accurate. Thus, quantifying the agreement between DTI tractography and histological measurements of true fiber pathways is critical for progress in the field. A series of validation studies of DTI tractography is presented in this thesis, including (1) assessment of the relationship between DTI tractography-derived corticocortical connectivity and histological 'ground truth' on a regional and voxelwise basis; (2) localizing the divergence between DTI tractography and histology, followed by qualitative analysis of the reasons for those discrepancies. The work presented here is based on a non-human primate animal model, which has comparable parameters to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) human data, and thus provides an important guide to interpreting the results of DTI-based tractography measures in the human brain.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03252013-194259 |
| Date | 15 April 2013 |
| Creators | Gao, Yurui |
| Contributors | Adam W. Anderson, Zhaohua Ding, Iwona Stepniewska, Mark D. Does, Malcolm J. Avison |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03252013-194259/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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