How many streamlines are required for reliable probabilistic tractography? Solutions for microstructural measurements and neurosurgical planning

• Published in: NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Fla.), 2020-05, Vol.211, p.116646-116646, Article 116646
• Main Authors: Reid, Lee B., Cespedes, Marcela I., Pannek, Kerstin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Algorithms; Bootstrapping; Datasets as Topic; Diffusion Tensor Imaging - methods; Diffusion Tensor Imaging - standards; Diffusion tractography; Diffusion weighted imaging; Estimates; Humans; Image processing; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - standards; Magnetic resonance imaging; Methods; Morphology; Neurosurgery; Patient safety; Power analysis; Prospective Studies; Reproducibility; Reproducibility of Results; Streamline count; Substantia alba; White Matter - anatomy & histology; White Matter - diagnostic imaging
• ISSN: 1053-8119; 1095-9572; 1095-9572
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116646

Diffusion MRI tractography is commonly used to delineate white matter tracts. These delineations can be used for planning neurosurgery or for identifying regions of interest from which microstructural measurements can be taken. Probabilistic tractography produces different delineations each time it is run, potentially leading to microstructural measurements or anatomical delineations that are not reproducible. Generating a sufficiently large number of streamlines is required to avoid this scenario, but what constitutes “sufficient” is difficult to assess and so streamline counts are typically chosen in an arbitrary or qualitative manner. This work explores several factors influencing tractography reliability and details two methods for estimating this reliability. The first method automatically estimates the number of streamlines required to achieve reliable microstructural measurements, whilst the second estimates the number of streamlines required to achieve a reliable binarised trackmap than can be used clinically. Using these methods, we calculated the number of streamlines required to achieve a range of quantitative reproducibility criteria for three anatomical tracts in 40 Human Connectome Project datasets. Actual reproducibility was checked by repeatedly generating the tractograms with the calculated numbers of streamlines. We found that the required number of streamlines varied strongly by anatomical tract, image resolution, number of diffusion directions, the degree of reliability desired, the microstructural measurement of interest, and/or the specifics on how the tractogram was converted to a binary volume. The proposed methods consistently predicted streamline counts that achieved the target reproducibility. Implementations are made available to enable the scientific community to more-easily achieve reproducible tractography. •Many factors influence how many streamlines are needed for reproducible tractograms.•These factors can alter required streamline counts by up to two orders of magnitude.•We supply means to compute required streamline counts for reproducible tractography.•The prospective methods cease streamline generation when stability criteria are met.