Lipeng Ning1,2, Carl-Fredrik Westin1,2, and Yogesh Rathi1,2
1Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, 2Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
We propose a novel model
termed PICASO for investigating the microstructural layout of brain tissue
using in vivo diffusion MRI (dMRI) measurements. Our method provides a direct
connection between the structural organization of biological tissue and a
function representing the disorder in the evolution of magnetization density. This
is achieved by extending the Bloch-Torrey equation to include variability in diffusivity
due to restrictions and hindrances. Using in vivo data from the Humman
Connectome Project (HCP), we show that the PICASO model can provide novel
information about the microstructural layout of the axonal packing in human
brain. Thus, our method can be applied in clinical settings to investigate
brain abnormalities.
