Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) is the first noninvasive in vivo imaging modality with the potential to generate fiber tract trajectories in soft fibrous tissues, such as the brain white matter. Several newly developed fiber reconstruction and tractography techniques based on DT-MRI are reviewed in this article, including streamline fiber tracking techniques, diffusion tensor deflection strategy, probabilistic Monte-Carlo method, fast marching tractography based on level set principles, and diffusion simulation-based tractography. We also discuss some potential applications of DT-MRI fiber tractography and list a few available fiber tractography and visualization software packages.

Mathematics Subject Classification:

This research was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation under the grant CCR-0092532, and ACR-0202934, in part by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science under grant DE-FG02-02ER45961.