Deep neural networks have enabled improved image quality and fast inference
times for various inverse problems, including accelerated magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) reconstruction. However, such models require a large number of
fully-sampled ground truth datasets, which are difficult to curate, and are
sensitive to distribution drifts. In this work, we propose applying
physics-driven data augmentations for consistency training that leverage our
domain knowledge of the forward MRI data acquisition process and MRI physics to
achieve improved label efficiency and robustness to clinically-relevant
distribution drifts. Our approach, termed VORTEX, (1) demonstrates strong
improvements over supervised baselines with and without data augmentation in
robustness to signal-to-noise ratio change and motion corruption in
data-limited regimes; (2) considerably outperforms state-of-the-art purely
image-based data augmentation techniques and self-supervised reconstruction
methods on both in-distribution and out-of-distribution data; and (3) enables
composing heterogeneous image-based and physics-driven data augmentations. Our
code is available at https://github.com/ad12/meddlr.Comment: Accepted to MIDL 202