If the spinal cord tumor contains nerve fibers, how can we reconstruct the nerves through DTI reconstruction?
Hi @DeshengKong,
Thank you for reaching out.
I presume you meant tractography (technique that reconstructs fiber bundles in 3D), not DTI (technique that fits diffusion weighted data to a 3x3 tensor and outputs voxelwise metrics such as FA, MD, etc.).
Regardless, you can apply any tractography algorithm in the spinal cord. But please be mindful that tractography is not specific to ‘nerve fibers’, but will reconstruct anything with coherent anisotropic features (eg: fibrous scaring tissue). So the presence of tractography bundles does not imply the presence of nerve fibers.
Best,
Julien
Yes, thank you very much for your reply. I hope to use DTT to observe the compression, destruction or infiltration of the spinal cord by cervical spinal cord tumors. Can we use the spinal cord toolbox to achieve this? Are there any relevant papers that have been published? Can it produce visual effects similar to DTT imaging of the brain?
Yes, thank you very much for your reply. I hope to use DTT to observe the compression, destruction or infiltration of the spinal cord by cervical spinal cord tumors. Can we use the spinal cord toolbox to achieve this?
You can use SCT to do the preprocessing required to reconstruct DTT. More information here.
Are there any relevant papers that have been published?
Yes, there are a few indeed (sorry I don’t have the time to list them)
Can it produce visual effects similar to DTT imaging of the brain?
yes it can-- see e.g. the cover of this book