Thesis defense Kwok Shing Chan (Donders series 584)

11 January 2023

Promotors: prof. dr. D. Norris
Co-promotor: dr. J. Marques

Disentangling a cube: Imaging white matter with advanced MRI techniques

Over the years, science has brought us closer to uncovering some of the mysteries of how the brain functions, thanks to the technological advances from which magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the driving forces. MRI is a versatile imaging modality allowing us to look inside our bodies noninvasively. Because most MR images are collected at a millimetre scale resolution nowadays, a single MR image voxel (i.e., a single data point) in the white matter of the brain can contain information from thousands of nerve fibres together with other constituents! As the title “Disentangling a cube” suggests, this dissertation is a collection of works to “look” beyond a single value of an MR image voxel, comprehending the biophysical phenomena that underpin it, in turn, allowing us to extract richer, more accurate and reliable information such that scientists can further improve our understanding of white matter in the brain.