Regularized Harmonic Estimation for Steady-State MR Elastography

Joshua D. Trzasko¹, Armando Manduca¹

In steady-state magnetic resonance elastography (MRE), the delivery of precise quantitative information about tissue stiffness inherently depends on accurate estimation of the invoked harmonic phase signal. In this work, we propose a novel, statistically-motivated strategy for estimating the first harmonic signal directly from raw, complex, multichannel MRI data, and discuss the incorporation of signal prior models for prospective noise suppression. As a result, the challenge associated with handling the complex and signal-dependent noise distribution of MRE phase images during retrospective denoising is completely mitigated.