Current challenges and opportunities for tractography

The brain is densely packed with about 160,000km of axons interconnecting brain regions. The complexity of the structural connectivity of the brain, or connectome, is hard to grasp. As presented in this book, diffusion MRI is a unique in vivo and noninvasive approach to investigate the architecture of the white matter anatomy and the connectome. However, diffusion MRI tractography remains in its infancy and is a technology that is changing constantly and users should be aware of possible biases and pitfalls. Hence, tractography still faces important challenges. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize them and raise awareness and inform researchers, users, and clinicians of the limitations present in commonly used tractography methods and promote adequate interpretations of results. Finally, the chapter aims at highlighting opportunities and open problems for future scientific endeavors.