Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 22: Posters I

DY 22.10: Poster

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 17:00–19:00, Poster A

Nonlinear analysis of Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) data of human brain neuron tracts — •Johanne Hizanidis¹, Panayiotis Katsaloulis¹, Dimitris Verganelakis², and Astero Provata¹ — ¹National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, Athens, Greece — ²Biomedical Institute Euromedica Encephalos, Athens, Greece

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a widely used medical non-ionizing and non-invasive imaging method for the accurate visualization of the human brain's internal. A recently developed MRI technique, the so-called Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) Tractography allows the in-vivo spatial study of white matter neuronal fibers, with a resolution of the order of mm. DTI measures the local properties of water diffusion between the axons of the tracts producing 2D or 3D images, in which shape represents the architecture of fibers and color corresponds to the diffusion direction. In earlier studies, fractal geometries were employed to describe the architecture of the human brain. Fractal analysis was used to determine the degree of statistical self-similarity characterizing the neuron network corresponding to a certain part of the brain. In this work, we analyze the statistical properties of the local density distribution of water molecules in the brain, as obtained from the 3D DTI images and develop a nonlinear mathematical model to describe the dynamics of this structure which fit the real data. The quantitative measures extracted from the data could potentially be used as a diagnostic tool (index) enabling the discrimination between healthy and damaged (from accidents, diseases or age) white matter.