Demian Wassermann1,
Nikos Makris2, Yogesh Rathi3, Martha E. Shenton3,
Marek Kubicki3, Carl-Fredrik Westin1, Ron Kikinis1
1Radiology,
Brigham and Women's Hosptial & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United
States; 2Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard
Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States; 3Psychiatry,
Brigham and Women's Hosptial & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United
States
In this work, we present a new population-based atlas of white matter tracts based on High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging (HARDI). In a population of 78 healthy subjects, we use a state of the art multi-tensor tractography algorithm to obtain a dense full-brain tractography and then we use dissect the major association, commissural and projection white matter tracts. Being able to trace axonal packages through areas of complex white matter anatomy, this approach enables us to consistently dissect tracts like the middle longitudinal fascicle (MdLF); the extreme capsule (EmC) ; the three subsections of the superior longitudinal fascicle (SLF); or the inferior ramifications of the cortico-spinal tract. Finally, we register all the tracts to MNI152 space and perform a statistical analysis to chart the shape and location of 29 white matter tracts: 11 association, 7 commissural and 12 projections ones.
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