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<p>Parallel MRI, in which k-space is regularly or irregularly undersampled, is critical for imaging speed acceleration. In this thesis, we show how to optimize a regular undersampling pattern for three-dimensional Cartesian imaging in order to achieve faster data acquisition and/or higher signal to noise ratio (SNR) by using nonlinear optimization. A new sensitivity profiling approach is proposed to produce better sensitivity maps, required for the sampling optimization. This design approach is easily adapted to calculate sensitivities for arbitrary planes and volumes. The use of a semi-definite, linearly constrained model to optimize a parallel MRI undersampling pattern is novel. To solve this problem, an iterative trust-region is applied. When tested on real coil data, the optimal solution presents a significant theoretical improvement in accelerating data acquisition speed and eliminating noise.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

MRI is a versatile tool for systematically assessing anatomical and functional changes in small animal models of human disease. Its noninvasive nature makes MRI an ideal candidate for longitudinal evaluation of disease progression in mice; however achieving the desired level of statistical power can be expensive in terms of imaging time. This is particularly true for cancer studies, where dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE-) MRI, which involves the repeated acquisition of anatomical images before, during, and after the injection of a paramagnetic contrast agent, is used to monitor changes in tumor vasculature. A means of reducing the overall time required to scan multiple cohorts of animals in distinct experimental groups is therefore highly desirable. Multiple-mouse MRI, in which several animals are simultaneously scanned in a common MRI system, has been successfully used to improve study throughput. However, to best utilize the next generation of small-animal MRI systems that will be equipped with an increased number of receive channels, a paradigm shift from simultaneously scanning as many animals as possible to scanning a more manageable number, at a faster rate, must be considered. Given a small-animal MRI system with 16 available receive channels, the simulations described in this work explore the tradeoffs between the number of animals scanned at once and the number of array elements dedicated to each animal for maximizing throughput. An array system consisting of 15 receive and 5 transmit coils allows throughput-optimized acceleration of a DCE-MRI protocol by a combination of multi-animal and parallel imaging techniques. The array system was designed and fabricated for use on a 7.0-T / 30-cm MRI system, and tested for high-throughput imaging performance in phantoms. Results indicate that up to a nine-fold throughput improvement is possible without sacrificing image quality compared to standard single-animal imaging hardware. A DCE-MRI study throughput improvement of just over six times that achieved with conventional single-mouse imaging was realized. This system will lower the barriers for DCE-MRI in preclinical research and enable more thorough sampling of disease pathologies that progress rapidly over time. / text

In MR imaging, techniques for acquisition of reduced data (Rapid MR imaging) are being explored to obtain high-quality images to satisfy the conflicting requirements of simultaneous high spatial and temporal resolution, required for functional studies. The term “rapid” is used because reduction in the volume of data acquisition leads to faster scans. The objective is to obtain high acceleration factors, since it indicates the ability of the technique to yield high-quality images with reduced data (in turn, reduced acquisition time). Reduced data acquisition in conventional (sequential) MR scanners, where a single receiver coil is used, can be achieved either by acquiring only certain k-space regions or by regularly undersampling the entire data in k-space. In parallel MR scanners, where multiple receiver coils are used to acquire high-SNR data, reduced data acquisition is typically accomplished using regular undersampling. Optimal region selection in the 3D k-space (restricted to ky - kz plane, since kx is the readout direction) needs to satisfy “maximum energy compaction” and “minimum acquisition” requirements. In this thesis, a novel star-shaped truncation window is proposed to increase the achievable acceleration factor. The proposed window monotonically cuts down the acquisition of the number of k-space samples with lesser energy. The truncation window samples data within a star-shaped region centered around the origin in the ky - kz plane. The missing values are extrapolated using generalized series modeling-based methods. The proposed method is applied to several real and synthetic data sets. The superior performance of the proposed method is illustrated using the standard measures of error images and uptake curve comparisons. Average values of slope error in estimating the enhancement curve are obtained over 5 real data sets of breast and abdomen images, for an acceleration factor of 8. The proposed method results in a slope error of 5%, while the values obtained using rectangular and elliptical windows are 12% and 10%, respectively. k-t BLAST, a popular method used in cardiac and functional brain imaging, involves regular undersampling. However, the method suffers from drawbacks such as separate training scan, blurred training estimates and aliased phase maps. In this thesis, variations to k-t BLAST have been proposed to overcome the drawbacks. The proposed improved k-t BLAST incorporates variable-density sampling scheme, phase information from the training map and utilization of generalized-series extrapolated training map. The advantage of using a variable density sampling scheme is that the training map is obtained from the actual acquisition instead of a separate pilot scan. Besides, phase information from the training map is used, in place of phase from the aliased map; generalized series extrapolated training map is used instead of the zero-padded training map, leading to better estimation of the unacquired values. The existing technique and the proposed variations are applied on real fMRI data volumes. Improvement in PSNR of activation maps of up to 10 dB. Besides, a reduction of 10% in RMSE is obtained over the entire time series of fMRI images. The peak improvement of the proposed method over k-t BLAST is 35%, averaged over 5 data sets. Most image reconstruction techniques in parallel MR imaging utilize the knowledge of coil sensitivities for image reconstruction, along with assumptions of image reconstruction functions. The thesis proposes an image reconstruction technique that neither needs to estimate coil sensitivities nor makes any assumptions on the image reconstruction function. The proposed cartesian parallel imaging using neural networks, called “Composite image Reconstruction And Unaliasing using Neural Networks” (CRAUNN), is a novel approach based on the observation that the aliasing patterns remain the same irrespective of whether the k-space acquisition consists of only low frequencies or the entire range of k-space frequencies. In the proposed approach, image reconstruction is obtained using the neural network framework. Data acquisition follows a variable-density sampling scheme, where low k-space frequencies are densely sampled, while the rest of the k-space is sparsely sampled. The blurred, unaliased images obtained using the densely sampled low k-space data are used to train the neural network. Image is reconstructed by feeding to the trained network, the aliased images, obtained using the regularly undersampled k-space containing the entire range of k-space frequencies. The proposed approach has been applied to the Shepp-Logan phantom as well as real brain MRI data sets. A visual error measure for estimating the image quality used in compression literature, called SSIM (Structural SIMilarity) index is employed. The average SSIM for the noisy Shepp-Logan phantom (SNR = 10 dB) using the proposed method is 0.68, while those obtained using GRAPPA and SENSE are 0.6 and 0.42, respectively. For the case of the phantom superimposed with fine grid-like structure, the average SSIM index obtained with the proposed method is 0.7, while those for GRAPPA and SENSE are 0.5 and 0.37, respectively. Image reconstruction is more challenging with reduced data acquired using non-cartesian trajectories since aliasing introduced is not localized. Popular technique for non-cartesian parallel imaging CGSENSE suffers from drawbacks like sensitivity to noise and requirement of good coil estimates, while radial/spiral GRAPPA requires complete identical scans to obtain reconstruction kernels for specific trajectories. In our work, the proposed neural network based reconstruction method, CRAUNN, has been shown to work for general non-cartesian acquisitions such as spiral and radial too. In addition, the proposed method does not require coil estimates, or trajectory-specific customized reconstruction kernels. Experiments are performed using radial and spiral trajectories on real and synthetic data, and compared with CGSENSE. Comparison of error images shows that the proposed method has far lesser residual aliasing compared to CGSENSE. The average SSIM index for reconstructions using CRAUNN with spirally and radially undersampled data, are comparable at 0.83 and 0.87, respectively. The same measure for reconstructions using CGSENSE are 0.67 and 0.69, respectively. The average RMSE for reconstructions using CRAUNN with spirally and radially undersampled data, are comparable at 11.1 and 6.1, respectively. The same measure for reconstructions using CGSENSE are 16 and 9.18, respectively.

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MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is a medical imaging method that uses magnetic fields in order to retrieve images of the human body. This thesis revolves around a novel acquisition method of 3D fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) called PRESTO-CAN that uses a radial pattern in order to sample the (kx,kz)-plane of k-space (the frequency domain), and a Cartesian sample pattern in the ky-direction. The radial sample pattern allows for a denser sampling of the central parts of k-space, which contain the most basic frequency information about the structure of the recorded object. This allows for higher temporal resolution to be achieved compared with other sampling methods since a fewer amount of total samples are needed in order to retrieve enough information about how the object has changed over time. Since fMRI is mainly used for monitoring blood flow in the brain, increased temporal resolution means that we can be able to track fast changes in brain activity more efficiently.The temporal resolution can be further improved by reducing the time needed for scanning, which in turn can be achieved by applying parallel imaging. One such parallel imaging method is SENSE (SENSitivity Encoding). The scan time is reduced by decreasing the sampling density, which causes aliasing in the recorded images. The aliasing is removed by the SENSE method by utilizing the extra information provided by the fact that multiple receiver coils with differing sensitivities are used during the acquisition. By measuring the sensitivities of the respective receiver coils and solving an equation system with the aliased images, it is possible to calculate how they would have looked like without aliasing.In this master thesis, SENSE has been successfully implemented in PRESTO-CAN. By using normalized convolution in order to refine the sensitivity maps of the receiver coils, images with satisfying quality was able to be reconstructed when reducing the k-space sample rate by a factor of 2, and images of relatively good quality also when the sample rate was reduced by a factor of 4. In this way, this thesis has been able to contribute to the improvement of the temporal resolution of the PRESTO-CAN method. / MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) är en medicinsk avbildningsmetod som använder magnetfält för att framställa bilder av människokroppen. Detta examensarbete kretsar kring en ny inläsningsmetod för 3D-fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) vid namn PRESTO-CAN som använder ett radiellt mönster för att sampla (kx,kz)-planet av k-rummet (frekvensdomänen), och ett kartesiskt samplingsmönster i ky-riktningen. Det radiella samplingsmönstret möjliggör tätare sampling av k-rummets centrala delar, som innehåller den mest grundläggande frekvensinformationen om det inlästa objektets struktur. Detta leder till att en högre temporal upplösning kan uppnås jämfört med andra metoder eftersom det krävs ett mindre antal totala sampel för att få tillräcklig information om hur objektet har ändrats över tid. Eftersom fMRI framförallt används för att övervaka blodflödet i hjärnan innebär ökad temporal upplösning att vi kan följa snabba ändringar i hjärnaktivitet mer effektivt.Den temporala upplösningen kan förbättras ytterligare genom att minska scanningstiden, vilket i sin tur kan uppnås genom att tillämpa parallell avbildning. En metod för parallell avbildning är SENSE (SENSitivity Encoding). Scanningstiden minskas genom att minska samplingstätheten, vilket orsakar vikning i de inlästa bilderna. Vikningen tas bort med SENSE-metoden genom att utnyttja den extra information som tillhandahålls av det faktum att ett flertal olika mottagarspolar med sinsemellan olika känsligheter används vid inläsningen. Genom att mäta upp känsligheterna för de respektive mottagarspolarna och lösa ett ekvationssystem med de vikta bilderna är det möjligt att beräkna hur de skulle ha sett ut utan vikning.I detta examensarbete har SENSE framgångsrikt implementerats i PRESTO-CAN. Genom att använda normaliserad faltning för att förfina mottagarspolarnas känslighetskartor har bilder med tillfredsställande kvalitet varit möjliga att rekonstruera när samplingstätheten av k-rummet minskats med en faktor 2, och bilder med relativt bra kvalitet också när samplingstätheten minskats med en faktor 4. På detta sätt har detta examensarbete kunnat bidra till förbättrandet av PRESTO-CAN-metodens temporala upplösning.

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