SFN2011 Diffusion Tensor Imaging Analysis Workshop

White Matter Exploration with Diffusion Tensor Imaging: Fundamentals and Perspectives - A Hands-On Workshop by the National Alliance for Medical Imaging Computing (NA-MIC)

Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DT-MRI) provides a non-invasive window on the complex organization of the brain white matter in-vivo. The technique offers tremendous opportunities for gaining insights into the architecture of major white matter pathways, and DT-MRI findings have the potential to play a critical role in the extraction of meaningful information for diagnosis, prognosis and following of treatment response. The workshop will guide participants through the fundamentals of the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of DT-MRI data. The format will alternate a series of lectures and hands-on sessions with the participants running DT-MRI analysis on their own laptops, to provide a conceptual understanding of the underlying theory of Diffusion Imaging, and a practical experience of extracting relevant clinical information from DT-MRI images. The hands-on sessions will use the 3DSlicer software, an open-source software package for medical image analysis and 3D visualization used in biomedical and clinical research worldwide. The workshop will educate the participants on the fundamentals of DT-MRI data required to make decisions about how to analyze their own data for neuroscience studies.

Introduction

This workshop has been submitted for review as a satellite event of the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, November 12-16, Washington, DC

Satellite Workshop Goals

• To provide tutorials on DTI data validation and management (including how to put your image data into NRRD format).
  
• To provide hands on tutorials in the use of NA-MIC DTI analysis tools.
  
• To establish contact between NA-MIC Tookit experts (users and developers) and basic and clinical researchers in the global neuroimaging community.
  

Workshop Faculty

• Sonia Pujol, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Surgical Planning Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Randy Gollub, MD, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Department of Psychiatry and Martinos Center, Department of Radiology, Massachussets General Hospital
• Alexandra Golby, MD, Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurosurgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Guido Gerig, PhD,The Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, University of Utah
• Anastasia Yendiki, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Martinos Center, Department of Radiology, Massachussets General Hospital
• Ipek Oguz, PhD, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Tentative Agenda

• 8:30 - 8:40 AM Goals of Workshop (Randy Gollub/Sonia Pujol)
• 8:40 - 9:30 AM Theoretical foundations of Diffusion Imaging (Anastasia Yendiki)
• 9:30 - 10:15 AM Getting to Know DTI really, really well- tensors, glyphs and more (Guido Gerig)
• 10:15 -10:30 Coffee Break
• 10:30 - 11:45 AM DTI in research and in the clinics: current uses and future roadmap (Ipek Oguz)
• 11:45 - 12:45 Lunch on own
• 12:45-1:15 Clinical correlation lecture: the Neurosurgeon's perspective (Alexandra Golby)
• 1:15 - 1:45 Challenges in clinical transfer of DT-MRI: towards validation of tractography (Sonia Pujol)
• 1:45 - 3:00 Hands-on Session 1- Diffusion Tensor Imaging Analysis within 3DSlicer: from DWI images to 3D fiber bundles (Sonia Pujol/Randy Gollub)
• 3:15 - 3:30 Coffee Break
• 3:30 - 4:45 Hands-on Session 2- White Matter Exploration for Neurosurgical Planning (Sonia Pujol/Randy Gollub)
• 4:45 - 5:00 Lessons in Multi-site DTI Acquisition- the BIRN experience (Randy Gollub)
• 5:00 - 5:30 Concluding remarks and Discussion

Logistics and Registration

• The workshop will be held from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm in Room 155 of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place, NW, Washington.
• Registration Fee: $50 (covers the cost of coffee breaks during the workshop).
• To register, send an e-mail to Katie Mastrogiacomo (kmast at nmr.mgh.harvard.edu). Please include your contact information including full spelling of your name, degree, current institution, preferred email address for communication, your educational background and training and your reason for attending. We would also appreciate it if you would indicate the characteristics of the computer you will be using for the workshop (OS, RAM, Processor).

Preparation for Workshop -- Important Information for all attendees

This is hands-on training. All participants must come with their own computer and install the software and data at the links below. Windows XP, Linux or MacOS 10.4 or greater computers are supported. A minimum of 1 GB of RAM (2 GB if possible) and a dedicated graphic accelerator with 64mb of on board graphic memory are required.
The software and datasets for the workshop will be posted a few weeks before the event.

Suggested background reading for workshop:

• Le Bihan D, Mangin JF, Poupon C, et al. Diffusion tensor imaging:. concepts and applications. J Magn Reson Imaging 2001;13:534–546 [pdf download]
• Westin CF, Maier SE, Mamata H, Nabavi A, Jolesz FA, Kikinis R., Processing and Visualization for Diffusion Tensor MRI. Medical Image Analysis, 6(2)::93-108, June 2002 [pdf dowload]
• S. Mori and P.C.M. van Zijl, Fiber tracking: principles and strategies – a technical review. NMR in Biomedicine, 15(7-8):468-480, 2002 [pdf download]
  
  
• Mukherjee P, Berman JI, Chung SW, Hess CP, Henry RG. Diffusion tensor MR imaging and fiber tractography: theoretic underpinnings. AJNR American journal of neuroradiology (2008) vol. 29 (4) pp. 632-41
• Mukherjee P, Chung SW, Berman JI, Hess CP, Henry RG. Diffusion tensor MR imaging and fiber tractography: technical considerations. AJNR American journal of neuroradiology (2008) vol. 29 (5) pp. 843-52
• Diffusion MRI: Theory, Methods, and Applications. Edited by Derek K. Jones. Oxford University Press, 2011.

To learn more about the NA-MIC Toolkit

Please visit our Wiki page for general information and the NA-MIC Kit pages for specific information.