Joint Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Motion and T1 Parameters from Magnetic Resonance Images in a Super-resolution Framework: a Simulation Study

What is it about?

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based T1 mapping allows spatially resolved quantification of the tissue-dependent spin-lattice relaxation time constant T1, which is a potential biomarker of various neurodegenerative diseases, including Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer disease, and Parkinson’s disease. In conventional T1 MR relaxometry, a quantitative T1 map is obtained from a series of T1-weighted MR images. Acquiring such a series, however, is time consuming. This has sparked the development of more efficient T1 mapping methods, one of which is a super-resolution reconstruction (SRR) framework in which a set of low resolution (LR) T1-weighted images is acquired and from which a high resolution (HR) T1 map is directly estimated. In this paper, the SRR T1 mapping framework is augmented with motion estimation. That is, motion between the acquisition of the LR T1-weighted images is modeled and the motion parameters are estimated simultaneously with the T1 parameters. Based on Monte Carlo simulation experiments, we show that such an integrated motion/relaxometry estimation approach yields more accurate T1 maps compared to a previously reported SRR based T1 mapping approach.

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