Theory and applications of diffusion MRI

Boosted by the tremendous success of diffusion tensor MRI, which led to the first in vivo and non-invasive characterization of microstructural tissue properties, many advancements in diffusion MRI have been made during the last decade. With new methodological developments in data acquisition, modeling, pre-processing, analysis, and visualization, diffusion MRI is rapidly becoming a standard addition to clinical MRI, especially, for investigating brain white matter architecture. In this work, an overview of methods and applications in diffusion MRI is presented. In particular, concepts underlying diffusion tensor MRI are discussed, techniques for reconstructing fiber pathways (both deterministically and probabilistically) are described, and the “crossing fibers” issue is explained.