Visualizing and exploring tractograms via two-dimensional connectivity maps

Introduction: Reflecting the intricacy of the connectivity in the brain, 3D brain tractography models are generally visually dense. Therefore, it is often difficult to ascertain tract projections as well as anatomical and functional structures clearly. In this context, we introduce a connectivity (“dependency”) map of tract projections in a framework that uses two-dimensional map representations for modeling and exploring the connectivity in the brain. We also describe an anecdotal evaluation with a neuropsychologist to assess the usefulness of our method in exploring anatomical and functional structures in the brain. We build on previous work described in [1] by extending it with a circular graph visualization of tract projection points, which can visualize the connectivity density and profiles in the brain (see Figure 1).