A Basic Introduction to Diffusion Tensor Imaging Mathematics and ImageProcessing Steps

Abstract

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is one of the most powerful magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques developed in the twentieth century. In spite of the fact that DTI has been in use for more than two decades, it is still hard to find publications that simplify mathematics behind DTI for DTI users without extensive mathematical background. We believe that this may prevent some researchers from using DTI technique to its fullest extent. To the best of our knowledge, there are no published reviews which have tried to clarify the methods of DTI measurement and analysis. In this article, we attempted to explain the mathematics of DTI in simple terms with the goal of providing DTI users, with a better understanding of this technique and its usage. In addition, we have also described the DTI processing steps and explained the reasons behind each step.