Abstract
Through advancing the existing and introducing novel methodological developments in streamlines tractography, this work proposes an approach that is meant to specifically interrogate an important yet relatively understudied population of the human white matter - the short association fibres. By marrying tractography with surface representation of the cortex, the framework: (1) ensures a greater cortical surface coverage through spreading streamline seeds more uniformly; (2) relies on precise filtering mechanics which are particularly important when dealing with small, morphologically complex structures; (3) allows to make use of surface-based registration for dataset comparisons which can be superior in the vicinity of the cortex. The indexation of surface vertices at each streamline end enables direct interfacing between streamlines and the cortical surface without dependence on the voxel grid. Short association fibre tractograms generated using recent test-retest data from our institution are carefully characterised and measures of consistency using streamline-, voxel-, surface- and network-wise comparisons calculated.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
