Tcksift2 returns NaN proportionality coefficient and unit weights for one ODF dataset

Hi everyone,

I’m having an issue with tcksift2 for one of my weekly ODF datasets and would appreciate some help understanding where the problem comes from. I have a series of weekly ODF files (weeks 32-44 from developing Human Connectome Project), all generated in the same format and with the same dimensions and voxel spacing.

I ran tractography with:

tckgen -act "${FIVE_TT}" -backtrack -seed_gmwmi "${GMWMI}" -select 5000000 "${ODF}" "${TRACKS}" -nthreads "${SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK}" -force

and then use

tcksift2 "${TRACKS}" "${ODF}" "${SIFT_WEIGHTS}" -act "${FIVE_TT}" -out_mu "${SIFT_MU}" -nthreads "${SLURM_CPUS_PER_TASK}" -force

For example, for week 41, the SIFT2 output is normal:

Proportionality coefficient after streamline mapping is 0.00071866498228817066 52472 fixels have no attributed streamlines; these account for 21.161548799850042% of the initial cost function
15317 of 181258 fixels were tracked, but have been excluded from optimisation due to inadequate reconstruction
Constant A scaling regularisation terms to match data term is 0.0072410649103759545
Iteration CF (data) CF (reg) Streamlines
46 32.907% 1.520% 4934959

However, week 42 fails:

Proportionality coefficient after streamline mapping is nan
678722 fixels have no attributed streamlines; these account for nan% of the initial cost function
No fixels were excluded from optimisation due to poor reconstruction
Constant A scaling regularisation terms to match data term is nan
Iteration CF (data) CF (reg) Streamlines
10 nan% nan% 4966659

The resulting SIFT2 weights are all 1, and the mu coefficient is NaN. I have also tested SIFT2 without ACT, and I still obtain unit weights, so I don’t currently think ACT is the cause. The important point is that the week 41 and week 42 datasets were processed using the same pipeline and have the same image dimensions/voxel spacing. The behaviour changes abruptly at week 42.

I would be very grateful for any suggestions on how to diagnose the source of the NaN proportionality coefficient.

Thanks