Intraoperative Assessment of Tumor Resection Margins in Breast-Conserving Surgery Using 18F-FDG Cerenkov Luminescence Imaging: A First-in-Human Feasibility Study.

In early-stage breast cancer, the primary treatment option for most women is breast-conserving surgery (BCS). There is a clear need for more accurate techniques to assess resection margins intraoperatively, because on average 20% of patients require further surgery to achieve clear margins. Cerenkov luminescence imaging (CLI) combines optical and molecular imaging by detecting light emitted by 18F-FDG. Its high-resolution and small size imaging equipment make CLI a promising technology for intraoperative margin assessment. A first-in-human study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of 18F-FDG CLI for intraoperative assessment of tumor margins in BCS. Methods: Twenty-two patients with invasive breast cancer received 18F-FDG (5 MBq/kg) 45-60 min before surgery. Sentinel lymph node biopsy was performed using an increased 99mTc-nanocolloid activity of 150 MBq to facilitate nodal detection against the γ-probe background signal (cross-talk) from 18F-FDG. The cross-talk and 99mTc dose required was evaluated in 2 lead-in studies. Immediately after excision, specimens were imaged intraoperatively in an investigational CLI system. The first 10 patients were used to optimize the imaging protocol; the remaining 12 patients were included in the analysis dataset. Cerenkov luminescence images from incised BCS specimens were analyzed postoperatively by 2 surgeons blinded to the histopathology results, and mean radiance and margin distance were measured. The agreement between margin distance on CLI and histopathology was assessed. Radiation doses to staff were measured. Results: Ten of the 12 patients had an elevated tumor radiance on CLI. Mean radiance and tumor-to-background ratio were 560 ± 160 photons/s/cm2/sr and 2.41 ± 0.54, respectively. All 15 assessable margins were clear on CLI and histopathology. The agreement in margin distance and interrater agreement was good (κ = 0.81 and 0.912, respectively). Sentinel lymph nodes were successfully detected in all patients. The radiation dose to staff was low; surgeons received a mean dose of 34 ± 15 µSv per procedure. Conclusion: Intraoperative 18F-FDG CLI is a promising, low-risk technique for intraoperative assessment of tumor margins in BCS. A randomized controlled trial will evaluate the impact of this technique on reexcision rates.

RAMP: a bioinformatics framework for researching imaging agents through molecular pathways.

Signaling pathways are the fundamental grammar of cellular communication, yet few frameworks are available to analyze molecular imaging probes in the context of signaling pathways. Such a framework would aid in the design and selection of imaging probes for measuring specific signaling pathways and, vice versa, help illuminate which pathways are being assayed by a given probe. RAMP (Researching imaging Agents through Molecular Pathways) is a bioinformatics framework for connecting signaling pathways and imaging probes using a controlled vocabulary of the imaging targets. RAMP contains signaling pathway data from MetaCore, the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, and the Gene Ontology project; imaging probe data from the Molecular Imaging and Contrast Agent Database (MICAD); and tissue protein expression data from The Human Protein Atlas. The RAMP search tool is available at . Examples are presented to demonstrate the utility of RAMP for pathway-based searches of molecular imaging probes.

Focal reversible deactivation of cerebral metabolism affects water diffusion.

The underlying biophysical mechanisms which affect cerebral diffusion contrast remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that cerebral metabolism may affect cerebral diffusion contrast. The purpose of this study was to develop the methodology to reversibly deactivate cerebral metabolism and measure the effect on the diffusion MRI signal. We developed an MRI-compatible cortical cooling system to reversibly deactivate cortical metabolism in rhesus monkey area V1 and used MR thermometry to calculate three-dimensional temperature maps of the brain to define the extent of deactivated brain in vivo. Significant changes in the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) were only observed during those experiments in which the cortex was cooled below the metabolic cutoff temperature of 20 degrees C. ADC decreases (12-20%) were observed during cortical cooling in regions where the temperature did not change. The normalized in vivo ADC as function of temperature was measured and found to be equivalent to the normalized ADC of free water at temperatures above 20 degrees C, but was significantly decreased below 20 degrees C (20-25% decrease). No changes in fractional anisotropy were observed. In future experiments, we will apply this methodology to quantify the effect of reversible deactivation on neural activity as measured by the hemodynamic response and compare water diffusion changes with hemodynamic changes.

Response monitoring, repetitive behaviour and anterior cingulate abnormalities in autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by inflexible and repetitive behaviour. Response monitoring involves evaluating the consequences of behaviour and making adjustments to optimize outcomes. Deficiencies in this function, and abnormalities in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) on which it relies, have been reported as contributing factors to autistic disorders. We investigated whether ACC structure and function during response monitoring were associated with repetitive behaviour in ASD. We compared ACC activation to correct and erroneous antisaccades using rapid presentation event-related functional MRI in 14 control and ten ASD participants. Because response monitoring is the product of coordinated activity in ACC networks, we also examined the microstructural integrity of the white matter (WM) underlying this brain region using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures of fractional anisotropy (FA) in 12 control and 12 adult ASD participants. ACC activation and FA were examined in relation to Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised ratings of restricted and repetitive behaviour. Relative to controls, ASD participants: (i) made more antisaccade errors and responded more quickly on correct trials; (ii) showed reduced discrimination between error and correct responses in rostral ACC (rACC), which was primarily due to (iii) abnormally increased activation on correct trials and (iv) showed reduced FA in WM underlying ACC. Finally, in ASD (v) increased activation on correct trials and reduced FA in rACC WM were related to higher ratings of repetitive behaviour. These findings demonstrate functional and structural abnormalities of the ACC in ASD that may contribute to repetitive behaviour. rACC activity following errors is thought to reflect affective appraisal of the error. Thus, the hyperactive rACC response to correct trials can be interpreted as a misleading affective signal that something is awry, which may trigger repetitive attempts at correction. Another possible consequence of reduced affective discrimination between error and correct responses is that it might interfere with the reinforcement of responses that optimize outcomes. Furthermore, dysconnection of the ACC, as suggested by reduced FA, to regions involved in behavioural control might impair on-line modulations of response speed to optimize performance (i.e. speed-accuracy trade-off) and increase error likelihood. These findings suggest that in ASD, structural and functional abnormalities of the ACC compromise response monitoring and thereby contribute to behaviour that is rigid and repetitive rather than flexible and responsive to contingencies. Illuminating the mechanisms and clinical significance of abnormal response monitoring in ASD represents a fruitful avenue for further research.

A non-invasive method to relate the timing of neural activity to white matter microstructural integrity.

The neurophysiological basis of variability in the latency of evoked neural responses has been of interest for decades. We describe a method to identify white matter pathways that may contribute to inter-individual variability in the timing of neural activity. We investigated the relation of the latency of peak visual responses in occipital cortex as measured by magnetoencephalography (MEG) to fractional anisotropy (FA) in the entire brain as measured with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in eight healthy young adults. This method makes no assumptions about the anatomy of white matter connections. Visual responses were evoked during a saccadic paradigm and were time-locked to arrival at a saccadic goal. The latency of the peak visual response was inversely related to FA in bilateral parietal and right lateral frontal white matter adjacent to cortical regions that modulate early visual responses. These relations suggest that biophysical properties of white matter affect the timing of early visual responses. This preliminary report demonstrates a non-invasive, unbiased method to relate the timing information from evoked-response experiments to the biophysical properties of white matter measured with DTI.

Using the wild bootstrap to quantify uncertainty in diffusion tensor imaging.

Estimation of noise-induced variability in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is needed to objectively follow disease progression in therapeutic monitoring and to provide consistent readouts of pathophysiology. The noise variability of nonlinear quantities of the diffusion tensor (e.g., fractional anisotropy, fiber orientation, etc.) have been quantified using the bootstrap, in which the data are resampled from the experimental averages, yet this approach is only applicable to DTI scans that contain multiple averages from the same sampling direction. It has been shown that DTI acquisitions with a modest to large number of directions, in which each direction is only sampled once, outperform the multiple averages approach. These acquisitions resist the traditional (regular) bootstrap analysis though. In contrast to the regular bootstrap, the wild bootstrap method can be applied to such protocols in which there is only one observation per direction. Here, we compare and contrast the wild bootstrap with the regular bootstrap using Monte Carlo numerical simulations for a number of diffusion scenarios. The regular and wild bootstrap methods are applied to human DTI data and empirical distributions are obtained for fractional anisotropy and the diffusion tensor eigensystem. Spatial maps of the estimated variability in the diffusion tensor principal eigenvector are provided. The wild bootstrap method can provide empirical distributions for tensor-derived quantities, such as fractional anisotropy and principal eigenvector direction, even when the exact distributions are not easily derived.

Reduced microstructural integrity of the white matter underlying anterior cingulate cortex is associated with increased saccadic latency in schizophrenia.

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a key component of a network that directs both spatial attention and saccadic eye movements, which are tightly linked. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has demonstrated reduced microstructural integrity of the anterior cingulum bundle as indexed by fractional anisotropy (FA) in schizophrenia, but the functional significance of these abnormalities is unclear. Using DTI, we examined the white matter underlying anterior cingulate cortex in schizophrenia to determine whether reduced FA is associated with prolonged latencies of volitional saccades. Seventeen chronic, medicated schizophrenia outpatients and nineteen healthy controls had high-resolution DTI scans. FA maps were registered to structural scans and mapped across participants using a surface-based coordinate system. Cingulate white matter was divided into rostral and dorsal anterior regions and a posterior region. Patients showed reduced FA in cingulate white matter of the right hemisphere. Reduced FA in the white matter underlying anterior cingulate cortex, frontal eye field, and posterior parietal cortex of the right hemisphere was associated with longer saccadic latencies in schizophrenia, though given the relatively small sample size, these relations warrant replication. These findings demonstrate that in schizophrenia, increased latency of volitional saccades is associated with reduced microstructural integrity of the white matter underlying key cortical components of a right-hemisphere dominant network for visuospatial attention and ocular motor control. Moreover, they suggest that anterior cingulate white matter abnormalities contribute to slower performance of volitional saccades and to inter-individual variability of saccadic latency in chronic, medicated schizophrenia.

Statistical group comparison of diffusion tensors via multivariate hypothesis testing.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) provides a powerful tool for identifying white matter (WM) alterations in clinical populations. The prevalent method for group-level analysis of DTI is statistical comparison of the diffusion tensor fractional anisotropy (FA) metric. The FA metric, however, does not capture the full orientational information contained in the diffusion tensor. For example, the FA test is incapable of detecting group-level differences in diffusion orientation when the level of anisotropy is unaffected. Here, we apply multivariate hypothesis testing procedures to the elements of the diffusion tensor as an alternative to univariate testing using FA. Both parametric and nonparametric tests are proposed with each choice carrying specific assumptions about the diffusion tensor model. Of particular interest is the Cramér test, which works on Euclidean interpoint distances and can be readily adapted to a specific non-Euclidean framework by applying matrix logarithms to the diffusion tensors. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we show that multivariate tests can detect diffusion tensor principal eigenvector differences of 15 degrees with up to 80-90% power under typical design conditions. We also show that some multivariate tests are more sensitive to FA differences, when compared to a univariate test on FA, even if there is no principal eigenvector difference. The Cramér test, using the Euclidean interpoint distances, performed best under both simulation scenarios. When applying the Cramér test of the diffusion tensor in a clinical population with a history of migraine, a 169% increase was observed in the volume of a significant cluster compared to the univariate FA test.

Interictal alterations of the trigeminal somatosensory pathway and periaqueductal gray matter in migraine.

Migraine has been traditionally considered a nonprogressive, paroxysmal disorder with no brain abnormalities between attacks. We used diffusion tensor imaging to examine interictal diffusion properties of the brains of migraineurs with aura, migraineurs without aura and matched healthy controls. Areas of lower fractional anisotropy were present in migraineurs along the thalamocortical tract. In addition, migraineurs with aura had lower fractional anisotropy in the ventral trigeminothalamic tract, and migraineurs without aura had lower fractional anisotropy in the ventrolateral periaqueductal grey matter. Our results indicate the presence of permanent interictal changes in migraineurs, pointing to an effect of migraine on the trigeminal somatosensory and modulatory pain systems.

Boosting the sampling efficiency of q-Ball imaging using multiple wavevector fusion.

q-Ball imaging (QBI) is a high-angular-resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) method that is capable of resolving complex, subvoxel white matter (WM) architecture. QBI requires time-intensive sampling of the diffusion signal and large diffusion wavevectors. Here we describe a reconstruction scheme for QBI, termed multiple wavevector fusion (MWF), that substantially boosts the sampling efficiency and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of QBI. The MWF reconstruction operates by nonlinearly fusing the diffusion signal from separate low and high wavevector acquisitions. The combination of wavevectors provides the benefits of the high SNR of the low wavevector signal and the high angular contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and peak separation of the high wavevector signal. The MWF procedure provides a framework for combining diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and QBI. Numerical simulations show that MWF of DTI and QBI provides a more accurate estimate of the diffusion orientation distribution function (ODF) than QBI alone. The accuracy improvement can be translated into an efficiency gain of 274-377%. An intravoxel peak connectivity metric (IPCM) is presented that calculates the peak connectivity between an ODF and its neighboring voxels. In human WM, MWF reveals more detailed WM architecture than QBI as measured by the IPCM for all sampling schemes presented.

Frontal connections and cognitive changes in normal aging rhesus monkeys: a DTI study.

Recent anatomical studies have found that cortical neurons are mainly preserved during the aging process while myelin damage and even axonal loss is prominent throughout the forebrain. We used diffusion tensor imaging (DT-MRI) to evaluate the hypothesis that during the process of normal aging, white matter changes preferentially affect the integrity of long corticocortical association fiber tracts, specifically the superior longitudinal fasciculus II and the cingulum bundle. This would disrupt communication between the frontal lobes and other forebrain regions leading to cognitive impairments. We analyzed DT-MRI datasets from seven young and seven elderly behaviorally characterized rhesus monkeys, creating fractional anisotropy (FA) maps of the brain. Significant age-related reductions in mean FA values were found for the superior longitudinal fasciculus II and the cingulum bundle, as well as the anterior corpus callosum. Comparison of these FA reductions with behavioral measures demonstrated a statistically significant linear relationship between regional FA and performance on a test of executive function. These findings support the hypothesis that alterations to the integrity of these long association pathways connecting the frontal lobe with other forebrain regions contribute to cognitive impairments in normal aging. To our knowledge this is the first investigation reporting such alterations in the aging monkey.

Anatomical alterations of the visual motion processing network in migraine with and without aura.

BACKGROUND: Patients suffering from migraine with aura (MWA) and migraine without aura (MWoA) show abnormalities in visual motion perception during and between attacks. Whether this represents the consequences of structural changes in motion-processing networks in migraineurs is unknown. Moreover, the diagnosis of migraine relies on patient's history, and finding differences in the brain of migraineurs might help to contribute to basic research aimed at better understanding the pathophysiology of migraine. METHODS AND FINDINGS: To investigate a common potential anatomical basis for these disturbances, we used high-resolution cortical thickness measurement and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to examine the motion-processing network in 24 migraine patients (12 with MWA and 12 MWoA) and 15 age-matched healthy controls (HCs). We found increased cortical thickness of motion-processing visual areas MT+ and V3A in migraineurs compared to HCs. Cortical thickness increases were accompanied by abnormalities of the subjacent white matter. In addition, DTI revealed that migraineurs have alterations in superior colliculus and the lateral geniculate nucleus, which are also involved in visual processing. CONCLUSIONS: A structural abnormality in the network of motion-processing areas could account for, or be the result of, the cortical hyperexcitability observed in migraineurs. The finding in patients with both MWA and MWoA of thickness abnormalities in area V3A, previously described as a source in spreading changes involved in visual aura, raises the question as to whether a "silent" cortical spreading depression develops as well in MWoA. In addition, these experimental data may provide clinicians and researchers with a noninvasively acquirable migraine biomarker.

White matter abnormalities in dystonia normalize after botulinum toxin treatment.

The pathophysiology of dystonia is still poorly understood. We used diffusion tensor imaging to screen for white matter abnormalities in regions between the basal ganglia and the thalamus in cervical and hand dystonia patients. All patients exhibited an abnormal hemispheric asymmetry in a focal region between the pallidum and the thalamus. This asymmetry was absent 4 weeks after the same patients were treated with intramuscular botulinum toxin injections. These findings represent a new systems-level abnormality in dystonia, which may lead to new insights about the pathophysiology of movement disorders. More generally, these findings demonstrate central nervous system changes following peripheral reductions in muscle activity. This raises the possibility that we have observed activity-dependent white matter plasticity in the adult human brain.

Influence of anisotropic conductivity on EEG source reconstruction: investigations in a rabbit model.

The aim of our work was to quantify the influence of white matter anisotropic conductivity information on electroencephalography (EEG) source reconstruction. We performed this quantification in a rabbit head using both simulations and source localization based on invasive measurements. In vivo anisotropic (tensorial) conductivity information was obtained from magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging and included into a high-resolution finite-element model. When neglecting anisotropy in the simulations, we found a shift in source location of up to 1.3 mm with a mean value of 0.3 mm. The averaged orientational deviation was 10 degree and the mean magnitude error of the dipole was 29%. Source localization of the first cortical components after median and tibial nerve stimulation resulted in anatomically verified dipole positions with no significant anisotropy effect. Our results indicate that the expected average source localization error due to anisotropic white matter conductivity is within the principal accuracy limits of current inverse procedures. However, larger localization errors might occur in certain cases. In contrast, dipole orientation and dipole strength are influenced significantly by the anisotropy. We conclude that the inclusion of tissue anisotropy information improves source estimation procedures.

Diffusion tensor imaging in presymptomatic and early Huntington's disease: Selective white matter pathology and its relationship to clinical measures.

Atrophy of cortical and subcortical gray matter is apparent in Huntington's disease (HD) before symptoms manifest. We hypothesized that the white matter (WM) connecting cortical and subcortical regions must also be affected early and that select clinical symptoms were related to systems degeneration. We used diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) to examine the regional nature of WM abnormalities in early HD, including the preclinical period, and to determine whether regional changes correlated with clinical features. We studied individuals in early stages (HD), presymptomatic individuals known to carry the genetic mutation that causes HD (Pre-HD), and matched healthy controls. DTI indices of tissue integrity were obtained from several regions of interest, including the corpus callosum (CC), internal capsule (IC), and basal ganglia, were compared across groups by t tests, and were correlated to cognitive and clinical measures. WM alterations were found throughout the CC, in the anterior and posterior limbs of the IC, and in frontal subcortical WM in HD subjects, supporting the selective involvement of the pyramidal tracts in HD; a similar distribution of changes was seen in Pre-HD subjects, supporting presymptomatic alterations. There was a significant relationship between select DTI measures and cognitive performance. Alterations in diffusion indices were also seen in the striatum that were independent of atrophy. Our findings support that WM alterations occur very early in HD. The distribution of the changes suggests that these changes contribute to the disruption of pyramidal and extrapyramidal circuits and also support a role of compromised cortical circuitry in early cognitive and subtle motor impairment during the preclinical stages of HD.

White matter alterations in cerebral amyloid angiopathy measured by diffusion tensor imaging.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) represents beta-amyloid deposition in the small- and medium-sized vessels of the brain and meninges. CAA contributes to altered vessel function and is associated with white matter damage, cognitive impairment, and most salient, hemorrhagic stroke. We used diffusion tensor imaging to evaluate the anatomic distribution of white matter degeneration in participants diagnosed with advanced CAA. METHODS: Diffusion tensor imaging was obtained from 11 participants diagnosed with CAA-related intracerebral hemorrhage and 13 matched healthy control participants. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and diffusivity maps were compared using voxel based t test and region-of-interest analyses. RESULTS: FA was reduced in CAA in temporal white matter and in the splenium of the corpus callosum (P<0.001 with approximately 17% reduction in temporal white matter and 15% reduction in the splenium). FA was marginally increased in CAA in the posterior limb of the internal capsule and subthalamic gray matter regions (approximately 7% increase in subthalamic gray). FA changes were bilateral, remained significant in cluster analysis controlling for multiple comparisons, and did not depend on the hemisphere of the cerebral hemorrhage. Diffusivity was not substantially altered. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that a pattern of regional brain tissue degeneration is a characteristic feature of advanced CAA.

Q-ball imaging of macaque white matter architecture.

Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging holds substantial promise as a technique for non-invasive imaging of white matter (WM) axonal projections. For diffusion imaging to be capable of providing new insight into the connectional neuroanatomy of the human brain, it will be necessary to histologically validate the technique against established tracer methods such as horseradish peroxidase and biocytin histochemistry. The macaque monkey provides an ideal model for histological validation of the diffusion imaging method due to the phylogenetic proximity between humans and macaques, the gyrencephalic structure of the macaque cortex, the large body of knowledge on the neuroanatomic connectivity of the macaque brain and the ability to use comparable magnetic resonance acquisition protocols in both species. Recently, it has been shown that high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) can resolve multiple axon orientations within an individual imaging voxel in human WM. This capability promises to boost the accuracy of tract reconstructions from diffusion imaging. If the macaque is to serve as a model for histological validation of the diffusion tractography method, it will be necessary to show that HARDI can also resolve intravoxel architecture in macaque WM. The present study therefore sought to test whether the technique can resolve intravoxel structure in macaque WM. Using a HARDI method called q-ball imaging (QBI) it was possible to resolve composite intravoxel architecture in a number of anatomic regions. QBI resolved intravoxel structure in, for example, the dorsolateral convexity, the pontine decussation, the pulvinar and temporal subcortical WM. The paper concludes by reviewing remaining challenges for the diffusion tractography project.

Choice reaction time performance correlates with diffusion anisotropy in white matter pathways supporting visuospatial attention.

Humans exhibit significant interindividual variability in behavioral reaction time (RT) performance yet the underlying neural mechanisms for this variability remain largely unknown. It has been proposed that interindividual variability in RT performance may be due to differences in white matter (WM) physiological properties, although such a relationship has never been demonstrated in cortical projection or association pathways in healthy young adults. Using diffusion tensor MRI (DTI), we sought to test whether diffusion tensor fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of the orientational coherence of water self-diffusion, is regionally correlated with RT on a visual self-paced choice RT (CRT) task. CRT was found to be significantly correlated with FA in projection and association pathways supporting visuospatial attention including the right optic radiation, right posterior thalamus, and right medial precuneus WM. Significant correlations were also observed in left superior temporal sulcus WM and the left parietal operculum. The lateralization of the CRT-FA correlation to right visual and parietal WM pathways is consistent with the specialization of right visual and parietal cortices for visuospatial attention. The localization of the CRT-FA correlations to predominantly visual and parietal WM pathways, but not to motor pathways or the corpus callosum indicates that individual differences in visual CRT performance are associated with variations in the WM underlying the visuospatial attention network as opposed to pathways supporting motor movement or interhemispheric transmission.

Q-ball imaging.

Magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) provides a powerful tool for mapping neural histoarchitecture in vivo. However, DTI can only resolve a single fiber orientation within each imaging voxel due to the constraints of the tensor model. For example, DTI cannot resolve fibers crossing, bending, or twisting within an individual voxel. Intravoxel fiber crossing can be resolved using q-space diffusion imaging, but q-space imaging requires large pulsed field gradients and time-intensive sampling. It is also possible to resolve intravoxel fiber crossing using mixture model decomposition of the high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) signal, but mixture modeling requires a model of the underlying diffusion process.Recently, it has been shown that the HARDI signal can be reconstructed model-independently using a spherical tomographic inversion called the Funk-Radon transform, also known as the spherical Radon transform. The resulting imaging method, termed q-ball imaging, can resolve multiple intravoxel fiber orientations and does not require any assumptions on the diffusion process such as Gaussianity or multi-Gaussianity. The present paper reviews the theory of q-ball imaging and describes a simple linear matrix formulation for the q-ball reconstruction based on spherical radial basis function interpolation. Open aspects of the q-ball reconstruction algorithm are discussed.

Diffusion MRI of complex neural architecture.

While functional brain imaging methods can locate the cortical regions subserving particular cognitive functions, the connectivity between the functional areas of the human brain remains poorly understood. Recently, investigators have proposed a method to image neural connectivity noninvasively using a magnetic resonance imaging method called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). DTI measures the molecular diffusion of water along neural pathways. Accurate reconstruction of neural connectivity patterns from DTI has been hindered, however, by the inability of DTI to resolve more than a single axon direction within each imaging voxel. Here, we present a novel magnetic resonance imaging technique that can resolve multiple axon directions within a single voxel. The technique, called q-ball imaging, can resolve intravoxel white matter fiber crossing as well as white matter insertions into cortex. The ability of q-ball imaging to resolve complex intravoxel fiber architecture eliminates a key obstacle to mapping neural connectivity in the human brain noninvasively.