Spatial normalization of cardiac diffusion tensor imaging for modeling the muscular structure of the myocardium

To build a model of the myocardium, a first step is the spatial normalization of data to a reference framework. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) provides information about tissue orientation, that is, fiber structures. Therefore, proper registration algorithms must be defined to deal with this image modality. In this paper, we propose a registration framework for cardiac DTI that takes into account the special features of DTI when applied to visualization of the myocardium. We propose a similarity measure adapted to the tensorial nature of the images, as well as an appropriate framework for averaging the DTI data sets. Results shown the advantages of the proposed methodology over other related approaches.