Anisotropy boosting improves ODF-Fingerprinting tractography in edematous brain.

Abstract

Peritumoral vasogenic edema of the brain is a major confounding factor for diffusion MRI tractography. Excessive fluids accumulated in edematous white matter decrease anisotropy of water self-diffusion which affects tracking algorithms. We address this hurdle with ODF-Fingerprinting (ODF-FP) - a dictionary-based fiber reconstruction algorithm that accommodates variability of neural tissue. By adding a regularization term to the ODF-FP matching formula, we boost diffusion anisotropy to improve white matter fiber identification in edematous regions.