Microstructure ­driven tractography in the human brain

Introduction: Diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tractography has become the tool of choice to probe the human brain's white matter (WM) in vivo. However, the relationship between the resulting streamlines and underlying WM microstructure characteristics, such as axon diameter, remains poorly understood. In this work, we reconstruct human brain fascicles using a new approach to trace WM fascicles while simultaneously characterizing the apparent distribution of axon diameters within the fascicle. This provides the mean to estimate the microstructure characteristics of fascicles while improving their reconstruction in complex tissue configurations.