Synopsis¶

Generates a whole brain mask from a DWI image

Usage¶

dwi2mask [ options ]  input output

• input: the input DWI image containing volumes that are both diffusion weighted and b=0
• output: the output whole-brain mask image

Description¶

All diffusion weighted and b=0 volumes are used to obtain a mask that includes both brain tissue and CSF.

In a second step peninsula-like extensions, where the peninsula itself is wider than the bridge connecting it to the mask, are removed. This may help removing artefacts and non-brain parts, e.g. eyes, from the mask.

Options¶

• -clean_scale value the maximum scale used to cut bridges. A certain maximum scale cuts bridges up to a width (in voxels) of 2x the provided scale. Setting this to 0 disables the mask cleaning step. (Default: 2)

DW gradient table import options¶

• -grad file Provide the diffusion-weighted gradient scheme used in the acquisition in a text file. This should be supplied as a 4xN text file with each line is in the format [ X Y Z b ], where [ X Y Z ] describe the direction of the applied gradient, and b gives the b-value in units of s/mm^2. If a diffusion gradient scheme is present in the input image header, the data provided with this option will be instead used.
• -fslgrad bvecs bvals Provide the diffusion-weighted gradient scheme used in the acquisition in FSL bvecs/bvals format files. If a diffusion gradient scheme is present in the input image header, the data provided with this option will be instead used.

Standard options¶

• -info display information messages.
• -quiet do not display information messages or progress status; alternatively, this can be achieved by setting the MRTRIX_QUIET environment variable to a non-empty string.
• -debug display debugging messages.
• -force force overwrite of output files (caution: using the same file as input and output might cause unexpected behaviour).
• -nthreads number use this number of threads in multi-threaded applications (set to 0 to disable multi-threading).
• -config key value (multiple uses permitted) temporarily set the value of an MRtrix config file entry.
• -help display this information page and exit.
• -version display version information and exit.

References¶

Dhollander T, Raffelt D, Connelly A. Unsupervised 3-tissue response function estimation from single-shell or multi-shell diffusion MR data without a co-registered T1 image. ISMRM Workshop on Breaking the Barriers of Diffusion MRI, 2016, 5

Tournier, J.-D.; Smith, R. E.; Raffelt, D.; Tabbara, R.; Dhollander, T.; Pietsch, M.; Christiaens, D.; Jeurissen, B.; Yeh, C.-H. & Connelly, A. MRtrix3: A fast, flexible and open software framework for medical image processing and visualisation. NeuroImage, 2019, 202, 116137

Author: David Raffelt (david.raffelt@florey.edu.au), Thijs Dhollander (thijs.dhollander@gmail.com) and Ben Jeurissen (ben.jeurissen@uantwerpen.be)

Copyright: Copyright (c) 2008-2019 the MRtrix3 contributors.

This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this file, You can obtain one at http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.

Covered Software is provided under this License on an “as is” basis, without warranty of any kind, either expressed, implied, or statutory, including, without limitation, warranties that the Covered Software is free of defects, merchantable, fit for a particular purpose or non-infringing. See the Mozilla Public License v. 2.0 for more details.

For more details, see http://www.mrtrix.org/.