No Arabic abstract
Diffusion MRI offers a unique probe into neural microstructure and connectivity in the developing brain. However, analysis of neonatal brain imaging data is complicated by inevitable subject motion, leading to a series of scattered slices that need to be aligned within and across diffusion-weighted contrasts. Here, we develop a reconstruction method for scattered slice multi-shell high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) data, jointly estimating an uncorrupted data representation and motion parameters at the slice or multiband excitation level. The reconstruction relies on data-driven representation of multi-shell HARDI data using a bespoke spherical harmonics and radial decomposition (SHARD), which avoids imposing model assumptions, thus facilitating to compare various microstructure imaging methods in the reconstructed output. Furthermore, the proposed framework integrates slice-level outlier rejection, distortion correction, and slice profile correction. We evaluate the method in the neonatal cohort of the developing Human Connectome Project (650 scans). Validation experiments demonstrate accurate slice-level motion correction across the age range and across the range of motion in the population. Results in the neonatal data show successful reconstruction even in severely motion-corrupted subjects. In addition, we illustrate how local tissue modelling can extract advanced microstructure features such as orientation distribution functions from the motion-corrected reconstructions.
In in-utero MRI, motion correction for fetal body and placenta poses a particular challenge due to the presence of local non-rigid transformations of organs caused by bending and stretching. The existing slice-to-volume registration (SVR) reconstruction methods are widely employed for motion correction of fetal brain that undergoes only rigid transformation. However, for reconstruction of fetal body and placenta, rigid registration cannot resolve the issue of misregistrations due to deformable motion, resulting in degradation of features in the reconstructed volume. We propose a Deformable SVR (DSVR), a novel approach for non-rigid motion correction of fetal MRI based on a hierarchical deformable SVR scheme to allow high resolution reconstruction of the fetal body and placenta. Additionally, a robust scheme for structure-based rejection of outliers minimises the impact of registration errors. The improved performance of DSVR in comparison to SVR and patch-to-volume registration (PVR) methods is quantitatively demonstrated in simulated experiments and 20 fetal MRI datasets from 28-31 weeks gestational age (GA) range with varying degree of motion corruption. In addition, we present qualitative evaluation of 100 fetal body cases from 20-34 weeks GA range.
Diffusion-weighted MRI measures the direction and scale of the local diffusion process in every voxel through its spectrum in q-space, typically acquired in one or more shells. Recent developments in microstructure imaging and multi-tissue decomposition have sparked renewed attention in the radial b-value dependence of the signal. Applications in motion correction and outlier rejection therefore require a compact linear signal representation that extends over the radial as well as angular domain. Here, we introduce SHARD, a data-driven representation of the q-space signal based on spherical harmonics and a radial decomposition into orthonormal components. This representation provides a complete, orthogonal signal basis, tailored to the spherical geometry of q-space and calibrated to the data at hand. We demonstrate that the rank-reduced decomposition outperforms model-based alternatives in human brain data, whilst faithfully capturing the micro- and meso-structural information in the signal. Furthermore, we validate the potential of joint radial-spherical as compared to single-shell representations. As such, SHARD is optimally suited for applications that require low-rank signal predictions, such as motion correction and outlier rejection. Finally, we illustrate its application for the latter using outlier robust regression.
Purpose: Diffusion MRI (dMRI) suffers from eddy currents induced by strong diffusion gradients, which introduce artefacts that can impair subsequent diffusion metric analysis. Existing retrospective correction techniques that correct for diffusion gradient induced eddy currents do not account for eddy current decay, which is generally effective for traditional Pulsed Gradient Spin Echo (PGSE) diffusion encoding. However, these techniques do not necessarily apply to advanced forms of dMRI that require substantial gradient slewing, such as Oscillating Gradient Spin Echo (OGSE). Methods: An in-house algorithm (TVEDDY), that for the first time retrospectively models eddy current decay, was tested on PGSE and OGSE brain images acquired at 7T. Correction performance was compared to conventional correction methods by evaluating the mean-squared error (MSE) between diffusion-weighted images acquired with opposite polarity diffusion gradients. As a ground truth comparison, images were corrected using field dynamics up to third order in space measured using a field monitoring system. Results: Time-varying eddy currents were observed for OGSE, which introduced blurring that was not reduced using the traditional approach but was diminished considerably with TVEDDY and model-based reconstruction. No MSE difference was observed between the conventional approach and TVEDDY for PGSE, but for OGSE TVEDDY resulted in significantly lower MSE than the conventional approach. The field-monitoring-informed model-based reconstruction had the lowest MSE for both PGSE and OGSE. Conclusion: This work establishes that it is possible to estimate time-varying eddy currents from the diffusion data itself, which provides substantial image quality improvements for gradient-intensive dMRI acquisitions like OGSE.
Purpose: The development of a calibrationless parallel imaging method for accelerated simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) MRI based on Regularized Nonlinear Inversion (NLINV), evaluated using Cartesian and radial FLASH. Theory and Methods: NLINV is a parallel imaging method that jointly estimates image content and coil sensitivities using a Newton-type method with regularization. Here, NLINV is extended to SMS-NLINV for reconstruction and separation of all simultaneously acquired slices. The performance of the extended method is evaluated for different sampling schemes using phantom and in-vivo experiments based on Cartesian and radial SMS-FLASH sequences. Results: The basic algorithm was validated in Cartesian experiments by comparison with ESPIRiT. For Cartesian and radial sampling, improved results are demonstrated compared to single-slice experiments, and it is further shown that sampling schemes using complementary samples outperform schemes with the same samples in each partition. Conclusion: The extension of the NLINV algorithm for SMS data was implemented and successfully demonstrated in combination with a Cartesian and radial SMS-FLASH sequence.
Purpose: To develop a single-shot multi-slice T1 mapping method by combing simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) excitations, single-shot inversion-recovery (IR) radial fast low-angle shot (FLASH) and a nonlinear model-based reconstruction method. Methods: SMS excitations are combined with a single-shot IR radial FLASH sequence for data acquisition. A previously developed single-slice calibrationless model-based reconstruction is extended to SMS, formulating the estimation of parameter maps and coil sensitivities from all slices as a single nonlinear inverse problem. Joint-sparsity constraints are further applied to the parameter maps to improve T1 precision. Validations of the proposed method are performed for a phantom and for the human brain and liver in six healthy adult subjects. Results: Phantom results confirm good T1 accuracy and precision of the simultaneously acquired multi-slice T1 maps in comparison to single-slice references. In-vivo human brain studies demonstrate the better performance of SMS acquisitions compared to the conventional spoke-interleaved multi-slice acquisition using model-based reconstruction. Apart from good accuracy and precision, the results of six healthy subjects in both brain and abdominal studies confirm good repeatability between scan and re-scans. The proposed method can simultaneously acquire T1 maps for five slices of a human brain ($0.75 times 0.75 times 5$ mm$^3$) or three slices of the abdomen ($1.25 times 1.25 times 6$ mm$^3$) within four seconds. Conclusion: The IR SMS radial FLASH acquisition together with a non-linear model-based reconstruction enable rapid high-resolution multi-slice T1 mapping with good accuracy, precision, and repeatability.