Greg Daniel Parker1,2, Nicholas Drage3,4,
Paul L. Rosin2, A. David Marshall2, Stephen Richmond4,
John Evans1, Derek K. Jones1
1CUBRIC, School of
Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; 2School
of Computer Science, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; 3Cardiff
Vale NHS Trust, United Kingdom; 4School of Dentistry, Cardiff
University, United Kingdom
Accurate in vivo estimates of muscle fibre trajectory are desirable for evaluation of subject-specific maxillofacial surgical treatment options. While diffusion tensor MRI provides adequatly reconstructs larger muscles (e.g. calf), fibre crossing inherent to maxillofacial musculature exposes well-known limitations; necessitating alternative analysis methodologies. Constrained spherical harmonic deconvolution demonstrates potential, however current data-driven calibration (optimized for white matter) produce spurious peaks in the fibre orientation density, adversely affecting tractography. With clinical application in mind, we demonstrate an automated tissue-specific calibration which, for the first time, successfully reconstructs complex muscle tissue in vivo and include preliminary results of unsupervised tract segmentation.
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