Color schemes to represent the orientation of anisotropic tissues from diffusion tensor data: Application to white matter fiber tract mapping in the human brain

This paper investigates the use of color to represent the directional infor mation contained in the diffusion tensor. Ideally, one wants to take into a ccount both the properties of human color vision and of the given display h ardware to produce a representation in which differences in the orientation of anisotropic structures are proportional to the perceived differences in color. It is argued here that such a goal cannot be achieved in general an d therefore, empirical or heuristic schemes, which avoid some of the common artifacts of previously proposed approaches, are implemented. Directionall y encoded color (DEC) maps of the human brain obtained using these schemes clearly show the main association, projection, and commissural white matter pathways. In the brainstem, motor and sensory pathways are easily identifi ed and can be differentiated from the transverse pontine fibers and the cer ebellar peduncles. DEC maps obtained from diffusion tensor imaging data pro vide a simple and effective way to visualize fiber direction, useful for in vestigating the structural anatomy of different organs. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss , Inc.