Safri AA, Nassir CMNCM, Iman IN, Mohd Taib NH, Achuthan A, Mustapha M. Diffusion tensor imaging pipeline measures of cerebral white matter integrity: An overview of recent advances and prospects. World J Clin Cases 2022; 10(24): 8450-8462 [PMID: 36157806 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i24.8450]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Muzaimi Mustapha, MBChB, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Neurosciences, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Health Campus, Kubang Kerian, Kubang Kerian 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia. mmuzaimi@usm.my
Research Domain of This Article
Neuroimaging
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. Aug 26, 2022; 10(24): 8450-8462 Published online Aug 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i24.8450
Diffusion tensor imaging pipeline measures of cerebral white matter integrity: An overview of recent advances and prospects
Amanina Ahmad Safri, Che Mohd Nasril Che Mohd Nassir, Ismail Nurul Iman, Nur Hartini Mohd Taib, Anusha Achuthan, Muzaimi Mustapha
Amanina Ahmad Safri, Che Mohd Nasril Che Mohd Nassir, Ismail Nurul Iman, Muzaimi Mustapha, Department of Neurosciences, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Health Campus, Kubang Kerian 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia
Nur Hartini Mohd Taib, Department of Radiology, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Health Campus, Kubang Kerian 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia
Anusha Achuthan, School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang, Malaysia
Muzaimi Mustapha, Department of Neurosciences, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia
Author contributions: Ahmad Safri A, Nassir CMNCM and Muzaimi M contributed to writing–original draft preparation; Nassir CMNCM, Nurul Iman I, Mohd Taib NH, Achuthan A, and Muzaimi M contributed to writing–review and editing; all authors made substantial contribution to revising the manuscript critically for important intellectual content and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Muzaimi Mustapha, MBChB, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Neurosciences, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Health Campus, Kubang Kerian, Kubang Kerian 16150, Kelantan, Malaysia. mmuzaimi@usm.my
Received: March 22, 2022 Peer-review started: March 22, 2022 First decision: June 7, 2022 Revised: June 20, 2022 Accepted: July 18, 2022 Article in press: July 18, 2022 Published online: August 26, 2022 Processing time: 146 Days and 22.3 Hours
Abstract
Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) is a leading cause of age-related microvascular cognitive decline, resulting in significant morbidity and decreased quality of life. Despite a progress on its key pathophysiological bases and general acceptance of key terms from neuroimaging findings as observed on the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), key questions on CSVD remain elusive. Enhanced relationships and reliable lesion studies, such as white matter tractography using diffusion-based MRI (dMRI) are necessary in order to improve the assessment of white matter architecture and connectivity in CSVD. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and tractography is an application of dMRI that provides data that can be used to non-invasively appraise the brain white matter connections via fiber tracking and enable visualization of individual patient-specific white matter fiber tracts to reflect the extent of CSVD-associated white matter damage. However, due to a lack of standardization on various sets of software or image pipeline processing utilized in this technique that driven mostly from research setting, interpreting the findings remain contentious, especially to inform an improved diagnosis and/or prognosis of CSVD for routine clinical use. In this minireview, we highlight the advances in DTI pipeline processing and the prospect of this DTI metrics as potential imaging biomarker for CSVD, even for subclinical CSVD in at-risk individuals.
Core Tip: Cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) is a leading cause of age-related microvascular cognitive decline resulting in significant impairment. Despite the general acceptance of key terms from neuroimaging findings as observed on the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), key questions on CSVD remain elusive. The MRI-based diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) offers non-invasive tool to quantitate brain white matter connections via fiber tracking that may inform the extent of CSVD-associated white matter damage. In this minireview, we highlight the advances in DTI pipeline processing and the prospect of DTI metrics as potential biomarker for CSVD amenable towards a routine clinical use.
