Abstract #1064

Constable R, Shaywitz B, Papademetris X, Jackowski M, Klang K, Fulbright R, Lacadie C, Shaywitz S, Tagare H

Diffusion tensor imaging shows promise for investigating differences in white matter structure across study groups. Most analyses to date register the individual subject anatomic T2 weighted data to a reference brain volume and then apply the same transformation matrix to the DTI data. This work demonstrates that if the fractional anisotropy maps, primarily representing white matter structures, are instead registered to a reference FA map using a nonlinear registration algorithm, then the inter-subject variance for specific white matter structures decreases, increasing the sensitivity to small differences between groups.