Abstract #1018

Self-navigated 3D multi-slab EPI for SNR-efficient high-resolution diffusion MRI

Ziyu Li¹, Karla L. Miller¹, Xi Chen^1,2,3, Mark Chiew^1,4,5, and Wenchuan Wu¹

¹Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, ²Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ³Department of Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁴Physical Sciences, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁵Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Synopsis

Keywords: Diffusion Acquisition, Sparse & Low-Rank Models, 3D multi-slab imaging, Navigator, Diffusion acquisition, Diffusion reconstruction

Motivation: 3D multi-slab EPI achieves superior SNR efficiency for high-resolution diffusion MRI but requires navigators for phase correction, which increase scan time and SAR.

Goal(s): To eliminate the requirement for navigators in 3D multi-slab diffusion MRI.

Approach: 3D imaging is intrinsically highly segmented, making self-navigation challenging. Our optimized multi-shot sampling facilitates self-navigation by ensuring each shot intersects with kz=0 plane. The overall sampling pattern’s overlap and gaps are also minimized. A structured low-rank reconstruction is leveraged to reconstruct 2D phase maps from these intersections for phase correction.

Results: Compared to navigated imaging our self-navigated method achieves comparable image quality with 31.4% shorter scan time.

Impact: By removing the need for navigation, our method enables 3D multi-slab diffusion MRI to efficiently achieve TRs with near-optimal SNR efficiency. This approach may permit wider adoption of high-resolution diffusion MRI for basic and clinical neuroscience.

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