Patent ID: 8160339

Claim:
A method of analyzing diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images, said method being adapted to analyze an ODF ψ 0 of nerve fibers at a voxel in space, and comprising the following steps: (A) finding an orientation {circumflex over (μ)} a with the largest probability in the ODF ψ 0 ; (B) maximizing a single fiber ODF ψ′; (C) analyzing the maximized single fiber ODF ψ′ to obtain quantitative information; (D) deducting the maximized single fiber ODF ψ′ obtained in step (B) from the entire ODF ψ 0 ; and (E) stopping computation if the result obtained in step (D) satisfies a termination condition, and substituting the result obtained in step (D) for the orientation distribution function ψ 0 in step (A), and repeating steps (A) to (D) if otherwise.