Image of the Day

The images that appear in the "Image of the Day" are selected for the freshness of their views on Brain Mapping, their esthetic appeal, their quirkiness, or someimes just to prod you into thinking about the field and its context. Their appearance here is not an endorsement of their subject matter.

Diffusion Imaging, Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Fiber Tracking Recent advances in magnetic resonance research have opened up new opportunities for gathering functional information about the brain. The development of diffusion imaging and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has offered the possibility to go beyond anatomical imaging and study tissue structure at a microscopic level in vivo. Currently, DTI provides an invaluable tool for the study and diagnosis of white-matter diseases. Increasing research focus has been placed on studying neuronal connectivity. An important application of DTI is fiber tracking, which allows elucidation of white-matter tracts. Combined with fMRI, information about white-matter tracts reveals important information about neurocognitive networks, and may improve our understanding of brain function. Recently, the potential of applying SENSE to DTI was demonstrated at 3.0 Tesla to improve acquisition speed and image quality. These studies have demonstrated the feasibility of fast fiber tracking in the human brain. Future research will concentrate on improving the accuracy and robustness of the technique, as well as enhanced visualization of the white fiber tracts in three dimensions. dipl. phys. Thomas Järmann, dipl. inf. ETH Philipp Stämpfli, Dr. Klaas Prüssmann, Prof. Dr. Peter Boesiger

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Submitted by: Mark Cohen