Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Structural Connectivity, and Schizophrenia
Figure 2
The shape of water diffusion in the different tissues of the brain. (a) depicts the variations in the shape of water diffusion across a coronal slice of brain tissue, while (b) is a zoomed-in section of (a). As illustrated in (b), the shape of diffusion in the inter-hemispheric fissure is approximately spherical, as there are few obstacles to diffusion in the CSF. In contrast, the tightly aligned, myelinated fibers of the corpus callosum form a significant obstacle to diffusion. Diffusion is more likely to occur parallel to the white matter fibers as opposed to perpendicular to them, and thus the shape of diffusion is ellipsoidal in these voxels.
