6,196 research outputs found
Autocalibrating and Calibrationless Parallel Magnetic Resonance Imaging as a Bilinear Inverse Problem
Modern reconstruction methods for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exploit
the spatially varying sensitivity profiles of receive-coil arrays as additional
source of information. This allows to reduce the number of time-consuming
Fourier-encoding steps by undersampling. The receive sensitivities are a priori
unknown and influenced by geometry and electric properties of the (moving)
subject. For optimal results, they need to be estimated jointly with the image
from the same undersampled measurement data. Formulated as an inverse problem,
this leads to a bilinear reconstruction problem related to multi-channel blind
deconvolution. In this work, we will discuss some recently developed approaches
for the solution of this problem.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, 12th International Conference on Sampling Theory
and Applications, Tallinn 201
Shearlet-based compressed sensing for fast 3D cardiac MR imaging using iterative reweighting
High-resolution three-dimensional (3D) cardiovascular magnetic resonance
(CMR) is a valuable medical imaging technique, but its widespread application
in clinical practice is hampered by long acquisition times. Here we present a
novel compressed sensing (CS) reconstruction approach using shearlets as a
sparsifying transform allowing for fast 3D CMR (3DShearCS). Shearlets are
mathematically optimal for a simplified model of natural images and have been
proven to be more efficient than classical systems such as wavelets. Data is
acquired with a 3D Radial Phase Encoding (RPE) trajectory and an iterative
reweighting scheme is used during image reconstruction to ensure fast
convergence and high image quality. In our in-vivo cardiac MRI experiments we
show that the proposed method 3DShearCS has lower relative errors and higher
structural similarity compared to the other reconstruction techniques
especially for high undersampling factors, i.e. short scan times. In this
paper, we further show that 3DShearCS provides improved depiction of cardiac
anatomy (measured by assessing the sharpness of coronary arteries) and two
clinical experts qualitatively analyzed the image quality
Exploiting flow dynamics for super-resolution in contrast-enhanced ultrasound
Ultrasound localization microscopy offers new radiation-free diagnostic tools
for vascular imaging deep within the tissue. Sequential localization of echoes
returned from inert microbubbles with low-concentration within the bloodstream
reveal the vasculature with capillary resolution. Despite its high spatial
resolution, low microbubble concentrations dictate the acquisition of tens of
thousands of images, over the course of several seconds to tens of seconds, to
produce a single super-resolved image. %since each echo is required to be well
separated from adjacent microbubbles. Such long acquisition times and stringent
constraints on microbubble concentration are undesirable in many clinical
scenarios. To address these restrictions, sparsity-based approaches have
recently been developed. These methods reduce the total acquisition time
dramatically, while maintaining good spatial resolution in settings with
considerable microbubble overlap. %Yet, non of the reported methods exploit the
fact that microbubbles actually flow within the bloodstream. % to improve
recovery. Here, we further improve sparsity-based super-resolution ultrasound
imaging by exploiting the inherent flow of microbubbles and utilize their
motion kinematics. While doing so, we also provide quantitative measurements of
microbubble velocities. Our method relies on simultaneous tracking and
super-localization of individual microbubbles in a frame-by-frame manner, and
as such, may be suitable for real-time implementation. We demonstrate the
effectiveness of the proposed approach on both simulations and {\it in-vivo}
contrast enhanced human prostate scans, acquired with a clinically approved
scanner.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure
User-initialized active contour segmentation and golden-angle real-time cardiovascular magnetic resonance enable accurate assessment of LV function in patients with sinus rhythm and arrhythmias.
BackgroundData obtained during arrhythmia is retained in real-time cardiovascular magnetic resonance (rt-CMR), but there is limited and inconsistent evidence to show that rt-CMR can accurately assess beat-to-beat variation in left ventricular (LV) function or during an arrhythmia.MethodsMulti-slice, short axis cine and real-time golden-angle radial CMR data was collected in 22 clinical patients (18 in sinus rhythm and 4 patients with arrhythmia). A user-initialized active contour segmentation (ACS) software was validated via comparison to manual segmentation on clinically accepted software. For each image in the 2D acquisitions, slice volume was calculated and global LV volumes were estimated via summation across the LV using multiple slices. Real-time imaging data was reconstructed using different image exposure times and frame rates to evaluate the effect of temporal resolution on measured function in each slice via ACS. Finally, global volumetric function of ectopic and non-ectopic beats was measured using ACS in patients with arrhythmias.ResultsACS provides global LV volume measurements that are not significantly different from manual quantification of retrospectively gated cine images in sinus rhythm patients. With an exposure time of 95.2 ms and a frame rate of > 89 frames per second, golden-angle real-time imaging accurately captures hemodynamic function over a range of patient heart rates. In four patients with frequent ectopic contractions, initial quantification of the impact of ectopic beats on hemodynamic function was demonstrated.ConclusionUser-initialized active contours and golden-angle real-time radial CMR can be used to determine time-varying LV function in patients. These methods will be very useful for the assessment of LV function in patients with frequent arrhythmias
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