Fiber Tractography Techniques

Abstract

This chapter introduces fiber tractography, a diffusion MRI technique that allows reconstructing the organization of biological tissues characterized by consistently oriented structures, or “fibers.” Examples of fibers are axonal bundles in the brain, or bundles of myocytes in the skeletal muscle. In this chapter, we first present an overview of the tractography process, covering the distinction between deterministic and probabilistic approaches, seeding strategies, the propagation process, and anatomical constraints. Subsequently, we will present an overview of methods that are commonly used to reconstruct local fiber orientations, which provide the local piecewise information that tractography collates in its topographical reconstruction. Finally, the chapter showcases some example applications of fiber tractography to explore brain anatomy, and to study brain structure and connectivity.