DIFFUSION TENSOR IMAGING
Advantages and Disadvantages
Although Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is seemed to have many advantages, there are also disadvantages that come along with it.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
-Diffusion images are sensitive to water diffusion that is in the order of 5-10 μm during the measurment time. If this happnes, images are sometimes full of ghosting due to the water molecules encountering obstacles. In the white matter, some of these obstacles include protein filaments and cell membrane, all of which have strongly aligned structures.
-image disortion
-low spatial resolution which means a lower amount of pixels so the images may come out blurry at times.
-extremely sensitive to motion and can cause misregistration if patient moves. Because of this,DTI requires at least 7 tensor fittings.
-requires extensive computing power, man-hours, and expertise.
-Able to pick up tears in white matter that MRI and CAT scans do not pick up
-obtains more detailed information from MRI scans and allows us to obtain images of white matter
-Can help doctors predict recovery times for concussion patients
-Can help solve the mystery of concussions through its deeper and in depth scan of the brain.
-Provides excellent details of the brain
-Provides a 3D visualization of neuronal pathways
-DTI is an effective tool for comprehensive, noninvasive, functional anatomy mapping of the human brain.
μm =
Micrometres
