Method and apparatus for processing diffusion data for identification of white matter tracts in the brain of a patient is provided herein. The method involves, with a processor: generating a connectivity based representation of white matter fibers for multiple different subjects from the connectivity signatures of the fibers from a diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) without using the physical coordinates of the fibers； generating a fiber bundle atlas from the connectivity based fiber representation of (a) which define a model of the human brain； adaptively clustering fibers of a new patient utilizing the fiber bundle atlas of (b) to extract white matter tracts without manual intervention in the form of drawing regions of interest； and presenting the selected white matter tracts and diffusion data in a report or on a display device. This method and apparatus can be used even for patients having edema or brain perturbations.
