Dr Jacques-Donald Tournier

My work is focused on the development and application of diffusion MRI methods, particularly those that relate to the characterisation of white matter and its connectivity. I have worked particularly on: - the design of acquisition schemes for high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI); - estimating fibre orientations in a crossing fibre context via spherical deconvolution; - probabilistic tractography methods and related applications such as Track Density Imaging (TDI), Anatomically Constrained Tractography (ACT), and spherical deconvolution informed filtering of tracks (SIFT); - Apparent Fibre Density (AFD) methods for group-wise fixel-based analysis of whole brain diffusion MRI data (fixel: fibre element - a fibre population within an imaging voxel); - advocating the use of higher-order models for clinical applications, particularly neurosurgery. I am currently interested in identifying the best imaging parameters for neonatal diffusion MRI, specifically for use in the Developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP). I am also investigating methods for the analysis of multi-shell HARDI data. Much of my research output is available for use in the open-source software package MRtrix, with the latest development efforts going into the next major release, MRtrix3 (already available, but currently still in beta). I complete my PhD in 2003 under the supervision of Alan Connelly and Fernando Calamante in the UCL Institute of Child Health, In 2005, I joined the Brain Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, which was later amalgamated into the Florey Institutes of Neuroscience and Mental Health. In 2013, I joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at King's College London, working within the Department of Perinatal Imaging and Health, located within St Thomas's Hospital, London.