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Abstract #1042

Comparison of Neighborhood Tractography Methods for Segmenting White Matter Tracts in the Ageing Brain

Mark E. Bastin1, Susana Muoz Maniega1, Jonathan D. Clayden2, Amos J. Storkey1, Laura J. E. Brown1, Alasdair M J MacLullich1

1University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Midlothian, UK; 2Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK


Tractography provides a promising tool for assessing white matter connectivity in old age. However, tractography output is usually strongly dependent on user-specified seed points. We have shown, however, that it is possible to segment the same fasciculus in groups of subjects using a method we term neighborhood tractography (NT). In addition to the original heuristic NT approach, we have recently developed two new NT methods which create probabilistic tract-matching models using supervised and unsupervised learning techniques. Here we investigate which of these three NT methods performs best in segmenting tracts in the brains of a cohort of elderly subjects.

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