FRACTAL DIMENSION AND LACUNARITY OF TRACTOGRAPHY IMAGES OF THE HUMAN BRAIN

Abstract

Tractography images produced by Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans have been used to calculate the topology of the neuron tracts in the human brain. This technique gives neuroanatomical details, limited by the system resolution properties. In the observed scales the images demonstrated the statistical self-similar structure of the neuron axons and its fractal dimensions were estimated using the classic Box Counting technique. To assess the degree of clustering in the neural tracts network, lacunarity was calculated using the Gliding Box method. The two-dimensional tractography images were taken from four subjects using various angles and different parts in the brain. The results demonstrated that the average estimated fractal dimension of tractography images is approximately D f = 1.60 with standard deviation 0.11 for healthy human-brain tissues, and it presents statistical self-similarity features similar to many other biological root-like structures.