Patent ID: 8077937

Claim:
A method for segmenting a white matter structure comprising: receiving by a digital processor an identification of an anatomical structure to analyze, the anatomical structure including a plurality of voxels, each of the plurality of voxels having a principal eigenvector comprising x, y, and z components, wherein the principal eigenvector denotes the direction of maximal diffusivity; receiving a seed voxel within the anatomical structure; determining x, y, and z components of a principal eigenvector of the seed voxel; applying by the digital processor a magnification factor to the x, y, and z components of the principal eigenvector of a plurality of potential boundary voxels such that each potential boundary voxel is weighted based on the anisotropy of the voxel; and determining a boundary of the anatomical structure based on comparisons of a maximum component of the principal eigenvector of the seed voxel to maximum components of the principal eigenvectors of the potential boundary voxels.