RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Differential Tractography as a Track-Based Biomarker for Neuronal Injury JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 576025 DO 10.1101/576025 A1 Fang-Cheng Yeh A1 Islam M. Zaydan A1 Valerie R. Suski A1 David Lacomis A1 R. Mark Richardson A1 Joseph C. Maroon A1 Jessica Barrios-Martinez YR 2019 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/16/576025.abstract AB Diffusion MRI tractography has been used to map the axonal structure of human brain, but its ability to detect neuronal injury is yet to be explored. Here we report differential tractography, a new type of tractography that utilizes repeat MRI scans and a novel tracking strategy to map the exact segment of fiber pathways with a neuronal injury. We examined differential tractography on multiple sclerosis, Huntington disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and epileptic patients. The results showed that the affected pathways shown by differential tractography matched well with the unique clinical symptoms of the patients, and the false discovery rate of the findings could be estimated using a sham setting to provide a reliability measurement. This novel approach enables a quantitative and objective method to monitor neuronal injury in individuals, allowing for diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of brain diseases.