Abstract #0714

Vigneron D, Xu D, Hess C, Han E, Mukherjee P, Berman J, Henry R

Prior research comparing high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) reconstruction methods has relied on numerical simulations to assess accuracy in resolving multiple fiber orientations. In this study, we apply the bootstrap concept to determine the in vivo precision of fiber orientation estimates derived from q-ball, spherical deconvolution, and diffusion orientation transform reconstructions. We compare the estimation uncertainty of each technique and assess the degree to which mean estimates of orientation differ across techniques. The results suggest that, for typical sparsely sampled HARDI data that might be acquired in the clinical setting, the three methods yield nearly equivalent directional information.