Deep Learning-Based Diffusion MRI Tractography: Integrating Spatial and Anatomical Information

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Main Authors: Yang, Yiqiong, Yuan, Yitian, Ren, Baoxing, Wu, Ye, Feng, Yanqiu, Zhang, Xinyuan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Yang, Yiqiong
Yuan, Yitian
Ren, Baoxing
Wu, Ye
Feng, Yanqiu
Zhang, Xinyuan
author_facet Yang, Yiqiong
Yuan, Yitian
Ren, Baoxing
Wu, Ye
Feng, Yanqiu
Zhang, Xinyuan
contents Diffusion MRI tractography technique enables non-invasive visualization of the white matter pathways in the brain. It plays a crucial role in neuroscience and clinical fields by facilitating the study of brain connectivity and neurological disorders. However, the accuracy of reconstructed tractograms has been a longstanding challenge. Recently, deep learning methods have been applied to improve tractograms for better white matter coverage, but often comes at the expense of generating excessive false-positive connections. This is largely due to their reliance on local information to predict long range streamlines. To improve the accuracy of streamline propagation predictions, we introduce a novel deep learning framework that integrates image-domain spatial information and anatomical information along tracts, with the former extracted through convolutional layers and the later modeled via a Transformer-decoder. Additionally, we employ a weighted loss function to address fiber class imbalance encountered during training. We evaluate the proposed method on the simulated ISMRM 2015 Tractography Challenge dataset, achieving a valid streamline rate of 66.2%, white matter coverage of 63.8%, and successfully reconstructing 24 out of 25 bundles. Furthermore, on the multi-site Tractoinferno dataset, the proposed method demonstrates its ability to handle various diffusion MRI acquisition schemes, achieving a 5.7% increase in white matter coverage and a 4.1% decrease in overreach compared to RNN-based methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_03329
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deep Learning-Based Diffusion MRI Tractography: Integrating Spatial and Anatomical Information
Yang, Yiqiong
Yuan, Yitian
Ren, Baoxing
Wu, Ye
Feng, Yanqiu
Zhang, Xinyuan
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Medical Physics
Diffusion MRI tractography technique enables non-invasive visualization of the white matter pathways in the brain. It plays a crucial role in neuroscience and clinical fields by facilitating the study of brain connectivity and neurological disorders. However, the accuracy of reconstructed tractograms has been a longstanding challenge. Recently, deep learning methods have been applied to improve tractograms for better white matter coverage, but often comes at the expense of generating excessive false-positive connections. This is largely due to their reliance on local information to predict long range streamlines. To improve the accuracy of streamline propagation predictions, we introduce a novel deep learning framework that integrates image-domain spatial information and anatomical information along tracts, with the former extracted through convolutional layers and the later modeled via a Transformer-decoder. Additionally, we employ a weighted loss function to address fiber class imbalance encountered during training. We evaluate the proposed method on the simulated ISMRM 2015 Tractography Challenge dataset, achieving a valid streamline rate of 66.2%, white matter coverage of 63.8%, and successfully reconstructing 24 out of 25 bundles. Furthermore, on the multi-site Tractoinferno dataset, the proposed method demonstrates its ability to handle various diffusion MRI acquisition schemes, achieving a 5.7% increase in white matter coverage and a 4.1% decrease in overreach compared to RNN-based methods.
title Deep Learning-Based Diffusion MRI Tractography: Integrating Spatial and Anatomical Information
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Medical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.03329