Magnetic resonance tractography of the cervical spine: A rapid diffusion tensor imaging protocol to serve as a clinical evaluation tool

Table 1 Results with fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity values obtained using DSI Studio

Case	Cranial FA	z-score	Cranial MD	z-score	Central FA	z-score	Central MD	z-score	Caudal FA	z-score	Caudal MD	z-score
Control 1	0.57	1.97	1.35	-0.78	0.57	0.86	1.24	-1.91	0.53	0.97	1.49	-0.03
Control 2	0.37	-0.22	0.99	-1.60	0.51	0.30	1.44	0.17	0.54	1.12	1.15	-1.72
Control 3	0.37	-0.22	2.01	0.73	0.52	0.39	1.47	0.49	0.45	-0.26	1.51	0.07
Control 4	0.31	-0.88	1.71	0.04	0.48	0.02	1.41	-0.14	0.47	0.05	1.78	1.41
Control 5	0.37	-0.22	2.01	0.73	0.52	0.39	1.47	0.49	0.45	-0.26	1.51	0.07
Metastatic	0.35	-0.44	2.08	0.88	0.27	-1.96	1.51	0.90	0.36	-1.63	1.54	0.22
Myelopathy	0.72	1.69	1.2	-0.80	0.57	1.18	1.57	1.25	0.62	1.65	1.23	-0.95
Contusion	0.51	0.93	1.18	-0.83	0.38	-1.82	1.33	-0.69	0.44	-0.91	1.43	-0.24
Multiple sclerosis	0.41	0.11	2.01	0.77	0.4	-1.76	1.53	1.04	0.44	-0.91	1.41	-0.32

Each pathology case was individually compared against the five control cases. z-scores were used to determine the relative increase or reduction of a given pathological case’s fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity values compared to the mean control values. Pathological cases were not compared against one another. FA: Fractional anisotropy; MD: Mean diffusivity.

Table 2 Magnetic resonance tractography parameters

Tracking parameters
Distortion correction	DSI studio Native Motion Correction tool
Software package	DSI studio (version. 2024.12.28 Hou Release)
FA threshold	0.15504-0.23520
Angular threshold	0-90°
Minimum length (mm)	10 mm
Maximum length (mm)	1000 mm
Step size (mm)	0.1 mm
Reconstruction algorithm	Deterministic (Euler)
ROA design	One ROA excluding the whole spinal cord
Filtering	Topology informed pruning

ROA: Region of avoidance; FA: Fractional anisotropy.