A Bayesian Approach to Distinguishing Interdigitated Muscles in the Tongue from Limited Diffusion Weighted Imaging

Fiber tracking in crossing regions is a well known issue in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Multi-tensor models have been proposed to cope with the issue. However, in cases where only a limited number of gradient directions can be acquired, for example in the tongue, the multi-tensor models fail to resolve the crossing correctly due to insufficient information. In this work, we address this challenge by using a fixed tensor basis and incorporating prior directional knowledge. Within a maximum a posteriori (MAP) framework, sparsity of the basis and prior directional knowledge are incorporated in the prior distribution, and data fidelity is encoded in the likelihood term. An objective function can then be obtained and solved using a noise-aware weighted ℓ₁-norm minimization. Experiments on a digital phantom and in vivo tongue diffusion data demonstrate that the proposed method is able to resolve crossing fibers with limited gradient directions.