Probabilistic tractography

Tractography techniques map white matter bundles in the brain using diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) data. These techniques use models to calculate paths where water molecule diffusion is least hindered, assuming these paths approximate the underlying white matter tracts, since diffusion is faster along tracts than across them. This assumption forms the basis of all tractography methods. However, these methods use various path calculation approaches to estimate white matter trajectories. This chapter reviews probabilistic tractography methods, which complement deterministic approaches by incorporating biophysical dispersion and capturing estimation uncertainty through stochastic modeling.