Discarded Image Volumes and Gradient Table Alignment: How Much Do They Affect DTI Tensor Calculations?

Lutfi Tugan Muftuler¹, Orhan Nalcioglu¹

DTI image volumes are preprocessed prior to the calculation of tensor model parameters. Before the preprocessing, it is common to discard some of the image volumes (or slices) if there are artifacts. The second step is to align all diffusion images. This corrects both the image deformations due to eddy current effects and the head motions. Sometimes the motion corrections are also applied to the gradient tables to ensure accuracy. In this study, we investigated the impact of these correction steps on the quality of FA maps, which are the most commonly used DTI parameter maps.