Talks by representatives from leading institutions in the field of MR DWI analysis research will guarantee a broad coverage of fundamental issues and latest research. The talks will be inter-twined and collaborative, covering the whole range from modeling the data up to appropriate methods for statistical analysis.

Schedule

9:00 - 9:15 :: Introduction

9:15 - 9:45 :: C-F Westin (Harvard Medical School, Boston):

Title: Diffusion MRI analysis in broad strokes.
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The talk will broadly cover

1. Diffusion weighted MRI, tensor estimation, tensor invariants
2. Structural connectivity from diffusion MRI
3. White matter anatomy from connectivity

Related papers:

• P. J. Basser: Inferring microstructural features and the physiological state of tissues from diffusion-weighted images. NMR in Biomedicine. 8 (1995) 333-344.
• Friman O, Farneback G, Westin CF. A Bayesian approach for stochastic white matter tractography. TMI 2006;25(8):965-978. download paper.
• Brun A, Knutsson H, Park HJ, Shenton ME, Westin CF. Clustering fiber tracts using normalized cuts. In Seventh International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI'04), Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Rennes - Saint Malo, France, 2004;368-375. download paper.

9:45 - 10:15 :: Carlo Pierpaoli (National Institute of Health, Bethesda):

Title: Interpreting diffusion MRI data: biological findings, artifacts, and wild dreams.
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The talk will broadly cover

1. Biological Interpretation of diffusion MRI findings in the human brain: art or science ?
2. Physiological noise and other artifacts in DT-MRI: what can we do to minimize their effects.
   

Related papers:

• Jones DK, Basser PJ. "Squashing peanuts and smashing pumpkins": how noise distorts diffusion-weighted MR data. Magn Reson Med 2004;52:979-93.
• Chang L-C, Jones DK, Pierpaoli C. RESTORE: robust estimation of tensors by outlier rejection. Magn Reson Med 2005;53:1088-95.
• Rohde GK, Barnett AS, Basser PJ, Pierpaoli C. Estimating intensity variance due to noise in registered images: applications to diffusion tensor MRI. Neuroimage 2005;26:673-84.
  
  

10:15 - 10:45 :: Ragini Verma (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia):

Title: DTI statistics: crimes, misdemeanors and having fun walking on non-linear manifolds
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The talk will broadly cover

1. Manifold-based high dimensional statistics of DTI
2. Analysis paradigm for large population DTI studies (registration, statistics)
   

Related papers:

• Parmeshwar Khurd, Ragini Verma, Christos Davatzikos: Kernel-Based Manifold Learning for Statistical Analysis of Diffusion Tensor Images. IPMI 2007: 581-593 download paper.
• Verma, R. Khurd, P. Davatzikos, C. On Analyzing Diffusion Tensor Images by Identifying Manifold Structure Using Isomaps IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. Volume: 26 (6), June 2007, 772-778 download paper.

10:45 -- 11:30 : Questions and Coffee Break

11:30 - 12:00 :: Pierre Fillard (INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis, France):

Title: Riemannian Processing of Diffusion Tensors: Application to Statistical Analysis, Estimation, Smoothing and more
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The talk will broadly cover

1. Riemannian and Log-Euclidean Statistics
2. How to efficiently recycle image processing algorithms to tensors?
3. An approach to diffusion tensor estimation and smoothing with an a priori on Rician noise.

Related papers:

• Pierre Fillard, Vincent Arsigny, Xavier Pennec, and Nicholas Ayache. Clinical DT-MRI Estimation, Smoothing and Fiber Tracking with Log-Euclidean Metrics. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 2007 (In Press).
• Vincent Arsigny, Pierre Fillard, Xavier Pennec, and Nicholas Ayache. Log-Euclidean Metrics for Fast and Simple Calculus on Diffusion Tensors. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 56(2):411-421, August 2006.
• Xavier Pennec, Pierre Fillard, and Nicholas Ayache. A Riemannian Framework for Tensor Computing. International Journal of Computer Vision, 66(1):41-66, January 2006.

12:00 - 12:20 :: Guido Gerig (University of Utah, Salt Lake City):

Title: Coordinate systems for computing DTI statistics in population studies
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The talk will discuss methods to perform tract-based statistics.

12:20 - 12:40 :: Casey Goodlett (University of Utah, Salt Lake City):

Title: Unbiased Atlas Building as a Coordinate System for Population Analysis of DTI
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The talk wiill discuss group analysis by extending atlas building to DTI
Related papers:

• Casey Goodlett, Brad Davis, Remi Jean, John Gilmore, Guido Gerig. Improved Correspondence for DTI Population Studies via Unbiased Atlas Building. Proc. MICCAI 2006, Springer LNCS vol. 4191, pp. 260 - 267.
• Fiber Tract-Oriented Statistics for Quantitative Diffusion Tensor MRI Analysis, Isabelle Corouge, P.Thomas Fletcher, Sarang Joshi, Sylvain Gouttard, Guido Gerig, Medical Image Analysis 10 (2006), 786 - 798
• A Volumetric Approach to Quantifying Region-to-Region White Matter Connectivity in Diffusion Tensor MRI P. Thomas Fletcher, Ran Tao, Won-Ki Jeong, and Ross T. Whitaker, Proc. IPMI 2007, Lecture Notes in Computer Science LNCS Volume 4584, Springer, pp. 346-358, 2007
• John H. Gilmore, Weili Lin, Isabella Corouge, Y. Sampath K. Vetsa, J. Keith Smith, Chaeryon Kang, Hongbin Gu, Robert M. Hamer, Jeffrey A. Lieberman, Guido Gerig, Early Postnatal Development of Corpus Callosum and Corticospinal White Matter Assessed with Quantitative Tractography, accepted AJNR-07-00044 (American Journal of Neuroradiology), Oct. 2007

12:40 - 1:00 :: C-F Westin Questions & Discussion, Closing remarks: datasets, software