Abstract
Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI), a method for measuring the integrity of axon fiber tracts in the brain, plays an important role in clarifying brain changes that accompany aging and aging-associated neurodegenerative disease. While DTI smoothing methods theoretically have the potential to enhance such studies by reducing noise, it is unclear whether DTI smoothing has any practical impact on computed associations between fiber tract integrity and scientific variables of interest. Therefore we smoothed DTI images from 154 older adults using three kernel smoothing methods hypothesized to have differing strengths (the affine and log-Euclidean smoothers were hypothesized to enhance highly organized tracts better than the Euclidean smoother). Smoothing increased the strengths of expected associations between DTI and age, cognitive function, and the diagnosis of dementia. However, no particular smoothing method was uniformly superior in strengthening these associations. This data suggests that DTI smoothing enhances the sensitivity of studies of brain aging, but further research is needed to determine which smoothing technique is optimal.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Title of host publication | Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS |
Pages | 94-97 |
Number of pages | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2012 |
Event | 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS 2012 - San Diego, CA, United States Duration: Aug 28 2012 → Sep 1 2012 |
Other
Other | 34th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS 2012 |
---|---|
Country | United States |
City | San Diego, CA |
Period | 8/28/12 → 9/1/12 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
- Signal Processing
- Biomedical Engineering
- Health Informatics