An algorithm for sparse MRI reconstruction by Schatten p-norm minimization

In recent years, there has been a concerted effort to reduce the MR scan time. Signal processing research aims at reducing the scan time by acquiring less K-space data. The image is reconstructed from the subsampled K-space data by employing compressed sensing (CS)-based reconstruction techniques. In this article, we propose an alternative approach to CS-based reconstruction. The proposed approach exploits the rank deficiency of the MR images to reconstruct the image. This requires minimizing the rank of the image matrix subject to data constraints, which is unfortunately a nondeterministic polynomial time (NP) hard problem. Therefore we propose to replace the NP hard rank minimization problem by its nonconvex surrogate — Schatten p-norm minimization. The same approach can be used for denoising MR images as well.Since there is no algorithm to solve the Schatten p-norm minimization problem, we derive an efficient first-order algorithm. Experiments on MR brain scans show that the reconstruction and denoising accuracy from our method is at par with that of CS-based methods. Our proposed method is considerably faster than CS-based methods.     

Exploiting rank deficiency and transform domain sparsity for MR image reconstruction

The reconstruction of magnetic resonance (MR) images from the partial samples of their k-space data using compressed sensing (CS)-based methods has generated a lot of interest in recent years. To reconstruct the MR images, these techniques exploit the sparsity of the image in a transform domain (wavelets, total variation, etc.). In a recent work, it has been shown that it is also possible to reconstruct MR images by exploiting their rank deficiency. In this work, it will be shown that, instead of exploiting the sparsity of the image or rank deficiency alone, better reconstruction results can be achieved by combining transform domain sparsity with rank deficiency.To reconstruct an MR image using its transform domain sparsity and its rank deficiency, this work proposes a combined l₁-norm (of the transform coefficients) and nuclear norm (of the MR image matrix) minimization problem. Since such an optimization problem has not been encountered before, this work proposes and derives a first-order algorithm to solve it.The reconstruction results show that the proposed approach yields significant improvements, in terms of both visual quality as well as the signal to noise ratio, over previous works that reconstruct MR images either by exploiting rank deficiency or by the standard CS-based technique popularly known as the ‘Sparse MRI.’     

Methods for quantitative image quality evaluation of MRI parallel reconstructions: detection and perceptual difference model

Many reconstruction algorithms are being proposed for parallel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which uses multiple coils and subsampled k-space data, and a quantitative method for comparison of algorithms is sorely needed. On such images, we compared three methods for quantitative image quality evaluation: human detection, computer detection model and a computer perceptual difference model (PDM). One-quarter sampling and three different reconstruction methods were investigated: a regularization method developed by Ying et al., a simplified regularization method and an iterative method proposed by Pruessmann et al. Images obtained from a full complement of k-space data were also included as reference images. Detection studies were performed using a simulated dark tumor added on MR images of fresh bovine liver. Human detection depended strongly on reconstruction methods used, with the two regularization methods achieving better performance than the iterative method. Images were also evaluated using detection by a channelized Hotelling observer model and by PDM scores. Both predicted the same trends as observed from human detection. We are encouraged that PDM gives trends similar to that for human detection studies. Its ease of use and applicability to a variety of MRI situations make it attractive for evaluating image quality in a variety of MR studies.     

Joint Reconstruction of Multi-contrast Images and Multi-channel Coil Sensitivities

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has an important feature that it provides multiple images with different contrasts for complementary diagnostic information. However, a large amount of data is needed for multi-contrast images depiction, and thus, the scan is time-consuming. Many methods based on parallel magnetic resonance imaging (pMRI) and compressed sensing (CS) are applied to accelerate multi-contrast MR imaging. Nevertheless, the image reconstructed by sophisticated pMRI methods contains residual aliasing artifact that degrades the quality of the image when the acceleration factor is high. Other methods based on CS always suffer the regularization parameter-selecting problem. To address these issues, a new method is presented for joint multi-contrast image reconstruction and coil sensitivity estimation. The coil sensitivities can be shared during the reconstruction due to the identity of coil sensitivity profiles of different contrast images for imaging stationary tissues. The proposed method uses the coil sensitivities as sharable information during the reconstruction to improve the reconstruction quality. As a result, the residual aliasing artifact can be effectively removed in the reconstructed multi-contrast images even if the acceleration factor is high. Besides, as there is no regularization term in the proposed method, the troublesome regularization parameter selection in the CS can also be avoided. Results from multi-contrast in vivo experiments demonstrated that multi-contrast images can be jointly reconstructed by the proposed method with effective removal of the residual aliasing artifact at a high acceleration factor.     

Application of perceptual difference model on regularization techniques of parallel MR imaging

Parallel magnetic resonance imaging through sensitivity encoding using multiple receiver coils has emerged as an effective tool to reduce imaging time or to improve image SNR. The quality of reconstructed images is limited by the inaccurate estimation of the sensitivity map, noise in the acquired k-space data and the ill-conditioned nature of the coefficient matrix. Tikhonov regularization is a popular method to reduce or eliminate the ill-conditioned nature of the problem. In this approach, selection of the regularization map and the regularization parameter is very important. Perceptual difference model (PDM) is a quantitative image quality evaluation tool that has been successfully applied to varieties of MR applications. High correlation between the human rating and PDM score shows that PDM should be suitable to evaluate image quality in parallel MR imaging. By applying PDM, we compared four methods of selecting the regularization map and four methods of selecting the regularization parameter. We found that a regularization map obtained using generalized series (GS) together with a spatially adaptive regularization parameter gave the best reconstructions. PDM was also used as an objective function for optimizing two important parameters in the spatially adaptive method. We conclude that PDM enables one to do comprehensive experiments and that it is an effective tool for designing and optimizing reconstruction methods in parallel MR imaging.     

Wavelet-based edge correlation incorporated iterative reconstruction for undersampled MRI

Undersampling k-space is an effective way to decrease acquisition time for MRI. However, aliasing artifacts introduced by undersampling may blur the edges of magnetic resonance images, which often contain important information for clinical diagnosis. Moreover, k-space data is often contaminated by the noise signals of unknown intensity. To better preserve the edge features while suppressing the aliasing artifacts and noises, we present a new wavelet-based algorithm for undersampled MRI reconstruction. The algorithm solves the image reconstruction as a standard optimization problem including a ?₂ data fidelity term and ?₁ sparsity regularization term. Rather than manually setting the regularization parameter for the ?₁ term, which is directly related to the threshold, an automatic estimated threshold adaptive to noise intensity is introduced in our proposed algorithm. In addition, a prior matrix based on edge correlation in wavelet domain is incorporated into the regularization term. Compared with nonlinear conjugate gradient descent algorithm, iterative shrinkage/thresholding algorithm, fast iterative soft-thresholding algorithm and the iterative thresholding algorithm using exponentially decreasing threshold, the proposed algorithm yields reconstructions with better edge recovery and noise suppression.     

Nuclear norm-regularized SENSE reconstruction

SENSitivity Encoding (SENSE) is a mathematically optimal parallel magnetic resonance (MRI) imaging technique when the coil sensitivities are known. In recent times, compressed sensing (CS)-based techniques are incorporated within the SENSE reconstruction framework to recover the underlying MR image. CS-based techniques exploit the fact that the MR images are sparse in a transform domain (e.g., wavelets). Mathematically, this leads to an l(1)-norm-regularized SENSE reconstruction. In this work, we show that instead of reconstructing the image by exploiting its transform domain sparsity, we can exploit its rank deficiency to reconstruct it. This leads to a nuclear norm-regularized SENSE problem. The reconstruction accuracy from our proposed method is the same as the l(1)-norm-regularized SENSE, but the advantage of our method is that it is about an order of magnitude faster.     

Compressed sensing MR image reconstruction using a motion-compensated reference

Compressed sensing (CS)-based methods have been proposed for image reconstruction from undersampled magnetic resonance data. Recently, CS-based schemes using reference images have also been proposed to further reduce the sampling requirement. In this study, we propose a new reference-constrained CS reconstruction method that accounts for the misalignment between the reference and the target image to be reconstructed. The proposed method uses a new image model that represents the target image as a linear combination of a motion-dependent reference image and a sparse difference image. We then use an efficient iterative algorithm to jointly estimate the motion parameters and the difference image from sparsely sampled data. Simulation results from a numerical phantom data set and an in vivo data set show that the proposed method can accurately compensate the motion effects between the reference and the target images and improve reconstruction quality. The proposed method should prove useful for several applications such as interventional imaging, longitudinal imaging studies and dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging.     

A robust algorithm for high-resolution dynamic MRI based on the partially separable functions model

A recently developed partially separable functions (PSF) model can be used to generate high-resolution dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, this method could not robustly reconstruct high-quality MR images because the estimation of the PSF parameters is often interfered by the noise of the sampled MR data. To improve the robustness of MRI reconstruction using the PSF model, we proposed a new algorithm to estimate the PSF parameters by jointly using robust principal component analysis and modified truncated singular value decomposition regularization methods, instead of using the least square fitting method in the original PSF model. The experiment results of in vivo cardiac MRI demonstrated that the proposed algorithm can robustly reconstruct dynamic MR images with higher signal-to-noise ratio and clearer anatomical structures in comparison with the previous PSF model.     

High-performance rapid MR parameter mapping using model-based deep adversarial learning

PurposeTo develop and evaluate a deep adversarial learning-based image reconstruction approach for rapid and efficient MR parameter mapping.MethodsThe proposed method provides an image reconstruction framework by combining the end-to-end convolutional neural network (CNN) mapping, adversarial learning, and MR physical models. The CNN performs direct image-to-parameter mapping by transforming a series of undersampled images directly into MR parameter maps. Adversarial learning is used to improve image sharpness and enable better texture restoration during the image-to-parameter conversion. An additional pathway concerning the MR signal model is added between the estimated parameter maps and undersampled k-space data to ensure the data consistency during network training. The proposed framework was evaluated on T₂ mapping of the brain and the knee at an acceleration rate R = 8 and was compared with other state-of-the-art reconstruction methods. Global and regional quantitative assessments were performed to demonstrate the reconstruction performance of the proposed method.ResultsThe proposed adversarial learning approach achieved accurate T₂ mapping up to R = 8 in brain and knee joint image datasets. Compared to conventional reconstruction approaches that exploit image sparsity and low-rankness, the proposed method yielded lower errors and higher similarity to the reference and better image sharpness in the T₂ estimation. The quantitative metrics were normalized root mean square error of 3.6% for brain and 7.3% for knee, structural similarity index of 85.1% for brain and 83.2% for knee, and tenengrad measures of 9.2% for brain and 10.1% for the knee. The adversarial approach also achieved better performance for maintaining greater image texture and sharpness in comparison to the CNN approach without adversarial learning.ConclusionThe proposed framework by incorporating the efficient end-to-end CNN mapping, adversarial learning, and physical model enforced data consistency is a promising approach for rapid and efficient reconstruction of quantitative MR parameters.     

Low-field magnetic resonance imaging using multiplicative regularization

In this paper we present a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that is based on multiplicative regularization. Instead of adding a regularizing objective function to a data fidelity term, we multiply by such a regularizing function. By following this approach, no regularization parameter needs to be determined for each new data set that is acquired. Reconstructions are obtained by iteratively updating the images using short-term conjugate gradient-type update formulas and Polak-Ribière update directions. We show that the algorithm can be used as an image reconstruction algorithm and as a denoising algorithm. We illustrate the performance of the algorithm on two-dimensional simulated low-field MR data that is corrupted by noise and on three-dimensional measured data obtained from a low-field MR scanner. Our reconstruction results show that the algorithm effectively suppresses noise and produces accurate reconstructions even for low-field MR signals with a low signal-to-noise ratio.     

基于支撑先验与深度图像先验的无预训练磁共振图像重建方法

基于深度学习的磁共振成像(magnetic resonance imaging, MRI)方法需要大规模、高质量的病患数据样本集进行预训练.然而,由于病患隐私及设备等因素限制,获取大规模、高质量的磁共振数据集在实际临床应用中面临挑战.本文提出一种新的基于深度学习的欠采样磁共振图像重建方法,该方法无需预训练、不依赖训练数据集,而是充分利用待重建的目标MR图像的结构先验和支撑先验,并将其引入深度图像先验(deep image prior, DIP)框架,从而削减对训练数据集的依赖,提升学习效率.基于参考图像与目标图像的相似性,采用高分辨率参考图像作为深度网络输入,将结构先验信息引入网络;将参考图像在小波域中幅值大的系数索引集作为目标图像的已知支撑集,构造正则化约束项,将网络训练转化为网络参数的最优化求解过程.实验结果表明,本文方法可由欠采样k空间数据重建得到更精确的磁共振图像,且在保留组织特征、细节纹理方面具有明显优势.     

Generalized total variation-based MRI Rician denoising model with spatially adaptive regularization parameters

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an outstanding medical imaging modality but the quality often suffers from noise pollution during image acquisition and transmission. The purpose of this study is to enhance image quality using feature-preserving denoising method. In current literature, most existing MRI denoising methods did not simultaneously take the global image prior and local image features into account. The denoising method proposed in this paper is implemented based on an assumption of spatially varying Rician noise map. A two-step wavelet-domain estimation method is developed to extract the noise map. Following a Bayesian modeling approach, a generalized total variation-based MRI denoising model is proposed based on global hyper-Laplacian prior and Rician noise assumption. The proposed model has the properties of backward diffusion in local normal directions and forward diffusion in local tangent directions. To further improve the denoising performance, a local variance estimator-based method is introduced to calculate the spatially adaptive regularization parameters related to local image features and spatially varying noise map. The main benefit of the proposed method is that it takes full advantage of the global MR image prior and local image features. Numerous experiments have been conducted on both synthetic and real MR data sets to compare our proposed model with some state-of-the-art denoising methods. The experimental results have demonstrated the superior performance of our proposed model in terms of quantitative and qualitative image quality evaluations.     

Sparsity-constrained SENSE reconstruction: An efficient implementation using a fast composite splitting algorithm

Parallel imaging and compressed sensing have been arguably the most successful and widely used techniques for fast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recent studies have shown that the combination of these two techniques is useful for solving the inverse problem of recovering the image from highly under-sampled k-space data. In sparsity-enforced sensitivity encoding (SENSE) reconstruction, the optimization problem involves data fidelity (L2-norm) constraint and a number of L1-norm regularization terms (i.e. total variation or TV, and L1 norm). This makes the optimization problem difficult to solve due to the non-smooth nature of the regularization terms. In this paper, to effectively solve the sparsity-regularized SENSE reconstruction, we utilize a new optimization method, called fast composite splitting algorithm (FCSA), which was developed for compressed sensing MRI. By using a combination of variable splitting and operator splitting techniques, the FCSA algorithm decouples the large optimization problem into TV and L1 sub-problems, which are then, solved efficiently using existing fast methods. The operator splitting separates the smooth terms from the non-smooth terms, so that both terms are treated in an efficient manner. The final solution to the SENSE reconstruction is obtained by weighted solutions to the sub-problems through an iterative optimization procedure. The FCSA-based parallel MRI technique is tested on MR brain image reconstructions at various acceleration rates and with different sampling trajectories. The results indicate that, for sparsity-regularized SENSE reconstruction, the FCSA-based method is capable of achieving significant improvements in reconstruction accuracy when compared with the state-of-the-art reconstruction method.     

Optimization of hyperparameters for SMS reconstruction

PurposeSimultaneous multi-slice (SMS) imaging accelerates MRI data acquisition by exciting multiple image slices with a single radiofrequency pulse. Overlapping slices encoded in acquired signal are separated using a mathematical model, which requires estimation of image reconstruction kernels using calibration data. Several parameters used in SMS reconstruction impact the quality and fidelity of final images. Therefore, finding an optimal set of reconstruction parameters is critical to ensure that accelerated acquisition does not significantly degrade resulting image quality.MethodsGradient-echo echo planar imaging data were acquired with a range of SMS acceleration factors from a cohort of five volunteers with no known neurological pathology. Images were collected using two available phased-array head coils (a 48-channel array and a reduced diameter 32-channel array) that support SMS. Data from these coils were identically reconstructed offline using a range of coil compression factors and reconstruction kernel parameters. A hybrid space (k-x), externally-calibrated coil-by-coil slice unaliasing approach was used for image reconstruction. The image quality of the resulting reconstructed SMS images was assessed by evaluating correlations with identical echo-planar reference data acquired without SMS. A finger tapping functional MRI (fMRI) experiment was also performed and group analysis results were compared between data sets reconstructed with different coil compression levels.ResultsBetween the two RF coils tested in this study, the 32-channel coil with smaller dimensions clearly outperformed the larger 48-channel coil in our experiments. Generally, a large calibration region (144–192 samples) and small kernel sizes (2–4 samples) in k_y direction improved image quality. Use of regularization in the kernel fitting procedure had a notable impact on the fidelity of reconstructed images and a regularization value 0.0001 provided good image quality. With optimal selection of other hyperparameters in the hybrid space SMS unaliasing algorithm, coil compression caused small reduction in correlation between single-band and SMS unaliased images. Similarly, group analysis of fMRI results did not show a significant influence of coil compression on resulting image quality.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that the hyperparameters used in SMS reconstruction need to be fine-tuned once the experimental factors such as the RF receive coil and SMS factor have been determined. A cursory evaluation of SMS reconstruction hyperparameter values is therefore recommended before conducting a full-scale quantitative study using SMS technologies.     

Content-based adaptive image denoising using spatial information

The maximum a posteriori (MAP) model is widely used in image processing fields, such as denoising, deblurring, segmentation, reconstruction, and others. However, the existing methods usually employ a fixed prior item and regularization parameter for the whole image and ignore the local spatial adaptive properties. Though the non-local total variation model has shown great promise because of exploiting the correlation in the image, the computation cost and memory load are the issues. In this paper, a content-based local spatial adaptive denoising algorithm is proposed. To realize the local spatial adaptive process of the prior model and regularization parameter, first the degraded image is divided into several same-sized blocks and the Tchebichef moment is used to analyze the local spatial properties of each block. Different property prior items and regularization parameters are then applied adaptively to different properties’ blocks. To reduce the computational load in denoising process, the split Bregman iteration algorithm is employed to optimize the non-local total variation model and accelerate the speed of the image denoising. Finally, a set of experiments and performance evaluation using recent image quality assessment index are provided to assess the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

基于自适应正则化的超分辨率重建方法

传统正则化超分辨重建得到的图像往往存在过度平滑或伪信息残留的问题,结合超分辨重建模型对重建图像伪信息的产生进行了分析,针对传统方法的不足提出了基于图像区域信息自适应的正则化方法,通过图像的区域信息将图像划分为平滑区与非平滑区域,对不同区域选用不同的先验模型进行约束。同时考虑人眼的视觉感知特性,结合区域信息实现正则化参数的自适应选取。实验结果表明该方法在抑制重建图像伪信息的同时能有效保护细节,效果要优于传统方法与单一的先验模型约束,对于红外与可见光图像重建效果的提升提供了一定的理论参考。     

MAP-regularized robust reconstruction for underwater imaging detection

In order to enhance the visual quality of underwater images, applications such as enhancement and restoration can be applied, but the resolution is still limited. Super-resolution reconstruction is a widely used technique for improving resolution beyond the limit of imaging system. With knowledge of the point spread function and techniques of regularization, the performance of reconstruction can be further enhanced. The presented effort proposed a robust image super-resolution reconstruction method under maximum a posteriori framework with regularization by the point spread function for underwater imaging detection. Objective image quality metrics are used to quantify the effectiveness of the reconstruction. Experimental results showed that the proposed method can effectively improve the resolution and quality of underwater imaging detection.     

Joint reconstruction of multiecho MR images using correlated sparsity

This works addresses the problem of reconstructing multiple T1- or T2-weighted images of the same anatomical cross section from partially sampled K-space data. Previous studies in reconstructing magnetic resonance (MR) images from partial samples of the K-space used compressed sensing (CS) techniques to exploit the spatial correlation of the images (leading to sparsity in wavelet domain). Such techniques can be employed to reconstruct the individual T1- or T2-weighted images. However, in the current context, the different images are not really independent; they are images of the same cross section and, hence, are highly correlated. We exploit the correlation between the images, along with the spatial correlation within the images to achieve better reconstruction results than exploiting spatial correlation only.For individual MR images, CS-based techniques lead to a sparsity-promoting optimization problem in the wavelet domain. In this article, we show that the same framework can be extended to incorporate correlation between images leading to group/row sparsity-promoting optimization. Algorithms for solving such optimization problems have already been developed in the CS literature. We show that significant improvement in reconstruction accuracy can be achieved by considering the correlation between different T1- and T2-weighted images. If the reconstruction accuracy is considered to be constant, our proposed group sparse formulation can yield the same result with 33% less K-space samples compared with simple sparsity-promoting reconstruction. Moreover, the reconstruction time by our proposed method is about two to four times less than the previous method.     

Accelerated 3D Coronary Vessel Wall MR Imaging Based on Compressed Sensing with a Block-Weighted Total Variation Regularization

Coronary vessel wall magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is important for heart disease diagnosis but often suffers long scan time. Compressed sensing (CS) has been previously used to accelerate MR imaging by reconstructing an MR image from undersampled k-space data using a regularization framework. However, the widely used regularizations in the current CS methods often lead to smoothing effects and thus are unable to reconstruct the coronary vessel walls with sufficient resolution. To address this issue, a novel block-weighted total variation regularization is presented to accelerate the coronary vessel wall MR imaging. The proposed regularization divides the image into two parts: a region-of-interest (ROI) which contains the coronary vessel wall, and the other region with less concerned features. Different penalty weights are given to the two regions. As a result, the small details within ROI do not suffer from over-smoothing while the noise outside the ROI can be significantly suppressed. Results with both numerical simulations and in vivo experiments demonstrated that the proposed method can reconstruct the coronary vessel wall from undersampled k-space data with higher qualities than the conventional CS with the total variation or the edge-preserved total variation.