Volume 89, Issue 5 pp. 1961-1974
RESEARCH ARTICLE

3D-EPI blip-up/down acquisition (BUDA) with CAIPI and joint Hankel structured low-rank reconstruction for rapid distortion-free high-resolution T 2 * mapping

Zhifeng Chen

Zhifeng Chen

School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Image Processing & Guangdong Province Engineering Laboratory for Medical Imaging and Diagnostic Technology, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China

Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

Department of Data Science and AI, Faculty of IT, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

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Congyu Liao

Corresponding Author

Congyu Liao

Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

Congyu Liao and Yanqiu Feng contributed equally to this work.

Correspondence

Yanqiu Feng, School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.

Email: [email protected]

Congyu Liao, Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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Xiaozhi Cao

Xiaozhi Cao

Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

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Benedikt A. Poser

Benedikt A. Poser

Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

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Zhongbiao Xu

Zhongbiao Xu

Department of Radiotherapy, Cancer Center, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital & Guangdong Academy of Medical Science, Guangzhou, China

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Wei-Ching Lo

Wei-Ching Lo

Siemens Medical Solutions, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

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Manyi Wen

Manyi Wen

Department of Chemical Pathology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

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Jaejin Cho

Jaejin Cho

Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

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Qiyuan Tian

Qiyuan Tian

Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

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Yaohui Wang

Yaohui Wang

Division of Superconducting Magnet Science and Technology, Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Yanqiu Feng

Corresponding Author

Yanqiu Feng

School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Image Processing & Guangdong Province Engineering Laboratory for Medical Imaging and Diagnostic Technology, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence & Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China

Congyu Liao and Yanqiu Feng contributed equally to this work.

Correspondence

Yanqiu Feng, School of Biomedical Engineering, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.

Email: [email protected]

Congyu Liao, Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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Ling Xia

Ling Xia

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

Research Center for Healthcare Data Science, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, China

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Wufan Chen

Wufan Chen

School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Image Processing & Guangdong Province Engineering Laboratory for Medical Imaging and Diagnostic Technology, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China

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Feng Liu

Feng Liu

School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

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Berkin Bilgic

Berkin Bilgic

Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA

Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

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First published: 27 January 2023
Citations: 5

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Funding information: China Postdoc Council, Grant/Award Number: OCPC-20190089; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 2018M633073; Guangdong Medical Scientific Research Foundation, Grant/Award Number: A2019041; Major Scientific Project of Zhejiang Laboratory, Grant/Award Number: 2020ND8AD01; National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Numbers: 61801205, U21A6005; NIBIB, Grant/Award Numbers: P41 EB030006, R01 EB019437, R01 EB028797, R01 EB032378, R03 EB031175, U01 EB025162, U01 EB026996; NIMH, Grant/Award Number: R01 MH116173; Nvidia; Science and Technology Program of Guangdong, Grant/Award Number: 2018B030333001

Abstract

Purpose

This work aims to develop a novel distortion-free 3D-EPI acquisition and image reconstruction technique for fast and robust, high-resolution, whole-brain imaging as well as quantitative T 2 * $$ {\mathrm{T}}_2^{\ast } $$ mapping.

Methods

3D Blip-up and -down acquisition (3D-BUDA) sequence is designed for both single- and multi-echo 3D gradient recalled echo (GRE)-EPI imaging using multiple shots with blip-up and -down readouts to encode B0 field map information. Complementary k-space coverage is achieved using controlled aliasing in parallel imaging (CAIPI) sampling across the shots. For image reconstruction, an iterative hard-thresholding algorithm is employed to minimize the cost function that combines field map information informed parallel imaging with the structured low-rank constraint for multi-shot 3D-BUDA data. Extending 3D-BUDA to multi-echo imaging permits T 2 * $$ {\mathrm{T}}_2^{\ast } $$ mapping. For this, we propose constructing a joint Hankel matrix along both echo and shot dimensions to improve the reconstruction.

Results

Experimental results on in vivo multi-echo data demonstrate that, by performing joint reconstruction along with both echo and shot dimensions, reconstruction accuracy is improved compared to standard 3D-BUDA reconstruction. CAIPI sampling is further shown to enhance image quality. For T 2 * $$ {\mathrm{T}}_2^{\ast } $$ mapping, parameter values from 3D-Joint-CAIPI-BUDA and reference multi-echo GRE are within limits of agreement as quantified by Bland–Altman analysis.

Conclusions

The proposed technique enables rapid 3D distortion-free high-resolution imaging and T 2 * $$ {\mathrm{T}}_2^{\ast } $$ mapping. Specifically, 3D-BUDA enables 1-mm isotropic whole-brain imaging in 22 s at 3T and 9 s on a 7T scanner. The combination of multi-echo 3D-BUDA with CAIPI acquisition and joint reconstruction enables distortion-free whole-brain T 2 * $$ {\mathrm{T}}_2^{\ast } $$ mapping in 47 s at 1.1 × 1.1 × 1.0 mm3 resolution.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Wei-Ching Lo is a Staff Scientist at Siemens Healthineers, USA.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

All the sample data were performed according to procedures approved by the local Internal Review Board after obtaining informed suitable written consents. All the 3T data, as well as the 7T data, will be made available on request, via a request to the corresponding author. Two exemplar 3D-BUDA data are made available at https://zenodo.org/record/7412718#.Y7OMSOxByX2.

The main image reconstruction code that supports the findings is available at https://github.com/zjuczf168/zjuczf168.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.