MRI of the Brain
The quest for biomarkers of neurological disorders using Diffusion Weighted MRI
Diffusion Tensor MRI (DTI) provides information about changes in the brain's white matter, both physiologically (aging) and pathologically (e.g. Alzheimer's disease). DTI measures the ability of water molecules to move freely in the surrounding tissue. Healthy white matter tracts show high diffusion along and low diffusion across axons. Such anisotropy is measured by DTI. Although pathology is generally characterized by increased isotropy, it is not easily recognized especially due to the lack of a reference. Our research focuses on identifying deviating structures in DTI data by developing methods that (i) improve tract characterization by explicitly modeling crossing tracts; (ii) establish both spatial and temporal registration; (iii) statistically model changes in white matter structure; (iv) identify spatiotemporal biomarkers that characterize disease.
In collaboration with AMC and Erasmus MC; Supported by NWO. Contact Frans Vos / Lucas van Vliet.
Exemplary movie: http://www.qi.tnw.tudelft.nl/~frans/movies/Tractography.avi
