An anatomically curated fiber clustering white matter atlas for consistent white matter tract parcellation across the lifespan

We evaluate the proposed atlas using a testing dataset of 584 diffusion MRI scans from multiple independently acquired populations, across genders, the lifespan (1 day-82 years), and different health conditions (healthy control, neuropsychiatric disorders, and brain tumor patients). Experimental results show successful white matter parcellation across subjects from different populations acquired on multiple scanners, irrespective of age, gender or disease indications. Over 99% of the fiber tracts annotated in the atlas were detected in all subjects on average. One advantage in terms of robustness is that the tract-based pipeline does not require any cortical or subcortical segmentations, which can have limited success in young children and patients with brain tumors or other structural lesions. We believe this is the first demonstration of consistent automated white matter tract parcellation across the full lifespan from birth to advanced age.