Sjoerd B. Vos1, Derek K. Jones2,
Max A. Viergever1, Alexander Leemans1
1Image Sciences Institute,
University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands; 2CUBRIC ,
Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, School of Psychology,
Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
Although many investigations focus on the crossing fibers issue in DTI, so far, no research has described the effect of complex fiber architecture on the apparent diffusion coefficient. In this work, we demonstrate that the mean diffusivity is decreased in regions of fiber crossings compared to regions with predominantly one fiber population. We further show that the extent of this decrease depends on the angle of intersection between the multiple fiber populations and on the relative contribution of these fiber populations.