Publication
Title
On the need for bundle-specific microstructure kernels in diffusion MRI
Author
Abstract
Probing microstructure with diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) on a scale orders of magnitude below the imaging resolution relies on biophysical modelling of the signal response in the tissue. The vast majority of these biophysical models of diffusion in white matter assume that the measured dMRI signal is the sum of the signals emanating from each of the constituent compartments, each of which exhibits a distinct behaviour in the b-value and/or orientation domain. Many of these models further assume that the dMRI behaviour of the oriented compartments (e.g. the intra-axonal space) is identical between distinct fibre populations, at least at the level of a single voxel. This implicitly assumes that any potential biological differences between fibre populations are negligible, at least as far as is measurable using dMRI. Here, we validate this assumption by means of a voxel-wise, model-free signal decomposition that, under the assumption above and in the absence of noise, is shown to be rank-1. We evaluate the effect size of signal components beyond this rank-1 representation and use permutation testing to assess their significance. We conclude that in the healthy adult brain, the dMRI signal is adequately represented by a rank-1 model, implying that biologically more realistic, but mathematically more complex fascicle-specific microstructure models do not capture statistically significant or anatomically meaningful structure, even in extended high-b diffusion MRI scans.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Neuroimage. - New York
Publication
New York : 2020
ISSN
1053-8119
DOI
10.1016/J.NEUROIMAGE.2019.116460
Volume/pages
208 (2020) , p. 1-8
Article Reference
116460
ISI
000509981500028
Pubmed ID
31843710
Medium
E-only publicatie
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Project info
DHCP: The Developing Human Connectome Project
White matter characterization using diffusion MRI.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 06.04.2020
Last edited 02.12.2024
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