Parcellation of the Cortex Using Restricted Diffusion Properties

Shani Ben Amitay¹, Yaniv Assaf¹

Parcellation of the cortex is traditionally achieved by visualization of the cortical cellular architecture. In this work we aim to segment the cortex into neuro-anatomical regions based on variations in restricted diffusion properties along the cortex. We use hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) to segment the cortex based on DTI and CHARMED maps. HCA and surface based analysis of the restricted diffusion component (Fr) indicates that homologous regions share similar mean Fr values and that mean Fr differs among cortical regions. We find that CHARMED seems to be superior over DTI parameters for cortical characterization.