The challenge of mapping the human connectome based on diffusion tractography

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01285-x
• Publication Date: 2017-11-01T20:29:22Z
• Authors: Klaus H. Maier-Hein; Peter F. Neher; Jean-Christophe H...; Marc-Alexandre Côté; Eleftherios Garyf...; Jidan Zhong; Maxime Chamberland; Fang-Cheng Yeh; Ying-Chia Lin; Qing Ji; Wilburn E. Reddick; John O. Glass; David Qixiang Chen; Yuanjing Feng; Chengfeng Gao; Ye Wu; Jieyan Ma; Renjie He; Qiang Li; Carl-Fredrik Westin; Samuel Deslaurier...; J. Omar Ocegueda ...; Michael Paquette; Samuel St-Jean; Gabriel Girard; François Rheault; Jasmeen Sidhu; Chantal M. W. Tax; Fenghua Guo; Hamed Y. Mesri; Szabolcs Dávid; Martijn Froeling; Anneriet M. Heems...; Alexander Leemans; Arnaud Boré; Basile Pinsard; Christophe Bedetti; Matthieu Desrosiers; Simona Brambati; Julien Doyon; Alessia Sarica; Roberta Vasta; Antonio Cerasa; Aldo Quattrone; Jason Yeatman; Ali R. Khan; Wes Hodges; Simon Alexander; David Romascano; Muhamed Barakovic; Anna Auría; Oscar Esteban; Alia Lemkaddem; Jean-Philippe Thiran; H. Ertan Cetingul; Benjamin L. Odry; Boris Mailhe; Mariappan S. Nadar; Fabrizio Pizzagalli; Gautam Prasad; Julio E. Villalon...; Justin Galvis; Paul M. Thompson; Francisco De Sant...; Pedro Luque Laguna; Luis Miguel Lacerda; Rachel Barrett; Flavio Dell’Acqua; Marco Catani; Laurent Petit; Emmanuel Caruyer; Alessandro Daducci; Tim B. Dyrby; Tim Holland-Letz; Claus C. Hilgetag; Bram Stieltjes; Maxime Descoteaux
• Keywords: Human Connectome Project; Ground truth; Human brain; Connectomics

Abstract Tractography based on non-invasive diffusion imaging is central to the study of human brain connectivity. To date, approach has not been systematically validated in ground truth studies. Based a simulated data set with tracts, we organized an open international tractography challenge, which resulted 96 distinct submissions from 20 research groups. Here, report encouraging finding that most state-of-the-art algorithms produce tractograms containing 90% bundles (to at least some extent). However, same contain many more invalid than valid bundles, and half these occur across Taken together, our results demonstrate confirm fundamental ambiguities inherent tract reconstruction orientation information alone, need be considered when interpreting connectivity results. Our provides novel framework for estimating reliability encourages innovation address its current limitations.