PhD defense open seminar: In vivo diffusion magnetic resonance imaging of the white matter microstructure from dictionaries generated by Monte Carlo simulations: development and validation
Event details
Date | 22.10.2019 |
Hour | 15:30 › 16:30 |
Speaker | Gaetan Rensonnet |
Location | |
Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Abstract:
Many neurological and psychiatric disorders are closely related to subtle alterations of white matter cells such as axons, i.e., the long cables interconnecting the different areas of gray matter. The ability to predict microstructural properties of those cells in vivo using a non-radiating technique would therefore have far-reaching consequences in neuroscience and in clinical practice.
In this thesis, a framework was developed for the estimation of the white matter microstructure based on diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI), a non-invasive imaging modality sensitive to the micrometer-scale displacements of water molecules undergoing diffusion the brain. The proposed approach, dubbed microstructure fingerprinting, relied on numerical Monte Carlo simulations of water diffusion rather than on closed-form mathematical formulas. On a variety of small animal and healthy human subject experiments, it was shown to be more robust and interpretable than traditional models. The flexibility of the proposed method should allow various refinements to be incorporated in the future, ultimately advancing our understanding of the white matter and improving the management of brain disorders.
Many neurological and psychiatric disorders are closely related to subtle alterations of white matter cells such as axons, i.e., the long cables interconnecting the different areas of gray matter. The ability to predict microstructural properties of those cells in vivo using a non-radiating technique would therefore have far-reaching consequences in neuroscience and in clinical practice.
In this thesis, a framework was developed for the estimation of the white matter microstructure based on diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI), a non-invasive imaging modality sensitive to the micrometer-scale displacements of water molecules undergoing diffusion the brain. The proposed approach, dubbed microstructure fingerprinting, relied on numerical Monte Carlo simulations of water diffusion rather than on closed-form mathematical formulas. On a variety of small animal and healthy human subject experiments, it was shown to be more robust and interpretable than traditional models. The flexibility of the proposed method should allow various refinements to be incorporated in the future, ultimately advancing our understanding of the white matter and improving the management of brain disorders.
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