Advances in the Visualization and the Study of the Pyramidal Tract with Magnetic Resonance Tractography

Abstract

Over the last several years, specific radiological techniques have been used for the analysis of the central nervous system pathways. They involve a magnetic resonance sequence called diffusion tensor imaging. In order to process the data provided by this sequence it is necessary to use software that can post-process the image and render three-dimensional images of the central nervous system pathways. Thanks to this sequence it has been possible to isolate over the years many nerve pathways that cross the brain tissue, particularly those which occupy a significant space. This sequence could have a large variety of uses, such as helping with the study of brain anatomy, assisting with surgery planning, or establishing a relationship between the nerve fibers and tumoral lesions. However, there has been an increasing number of cases that report a low reliability related to the tractographic representation of this technique. Our goal with this article is to analyse a specific nerve pathway, the piramidal tract, in order to assess the coherence between the images obtained and the anatomy that is already known from the perspective of the radiological image, and to compare this tract between different patients.

Keywords: 3D imaging; Imaging analysis; Limitations; Pyramidal tract; Tractography.