Artificial Phantoms for Studies of Anisotropic Diffusion in the Brain

Introduction Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) provides access to fibre pathways and structural integrity in white matter and is an expanding area of the research. It finds important clinical applications in managing neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis. Many advanced techniques have been recently suggested for the reconstruction of the diffusion orientation distribution function with an enhanced angular resolution (HARDI). In order to enable better access to the sensitivity of the proposed diffusion indices to the underlying microstructure, it is important to develop artificial model systems that exhibit the required properties, on the one hand, but benefit from a reduced complexity on the other. The aim of this work is to construct simple phantoms that are characteristic of a sufficiently strong anisotropy and are suitable for a validation of the analytical models.