Synopsis

Non-linear spatial encoding magnetic (SEM) fields can accelerate data acquisitions and improve the image quality. O-Space imaging generates a radially varying SEM field for spatial encoding in order to achieve more efficient encoding. In this work, we introduce and evaluate a novel primal dual algorithm which can handle the inverse problems of non-smooth convex optimization with non-linear forward operators to reconstruct O-Space images from undersampled data. The experimental results on simulated data show that the proposed method can achieve better image quality compared with the existing methods.

Introduction

Methods

In nonlinear encoding, the magnetic resonance signal from the q-th RF channel should satisfy the following equation: $$s_q(t)= \int_{\Omega} M(X)C_q(X)e^{j\Phi(X,t)}dX (1)$$ where $$$M(X)$$$ is the magnetization at location $$$X$$$;$$$C_q(X)$$$is the sensitivity of coil q; $$$\Omega$$$ is the region of interest; $$$\Phi(X,t)$$$ is the spatially dependent encoding phase, which can be decomposed as, $$\Phi(X,t)=\kappa^T(t)\Psi(X) (2)$$ where $$$\kappa(t)$$$ is the vector of gradient moments, and $$$\Psi(X)$$$ represents the gradient encoding fields at position $$$X=(x,y,z)$$$. More explicitly, for the O-Space echo corresponding to the l-th center placement (CP) of $$$(x_l,y_l)$$$, the Eq. (2) becomes $$\Phi(X,t)=\kappa_x(t)\cdot x+\kappa_y(t)\cdot y-\frac{\kappa_{z2}(t)}{2}\cdot((x-x_l)^2+(y-y_l)^2) (3)$$ where $$$\kappa_x(t)=\gamma\int_{0}^{t} G_x(\tau)d\tau$$$, $$$\kappa_y(t)=\gamma\int_{0}^{t} G_y(\tau)d\tau$$$ and $$$\kappa_{z2}(t)=\gamma\int_{0}^{t} G_{z2}(\tau)d\tau$$$; $$$G_x(t)$$$, $$$G_y(t)$$$ and $$$G_{z2}(t)$$$ are gradients waveforms on X, Y and Z2 directions; $$$\gamma$$$ is the gyromagnetic ratio. For O-Space imaging, $$$G_x(t)$$$ and $$$G_y(t)$$$ are actually the same as those of radial imaging, while $$$G_{z2}(t)$$$ describes a constant amplitude of the circumferentially invariant, radially varying nonlinear SEM. For the case of the l-th CP located at the location of $$$(x_l,y_l)$$$, the O-Space signal Eq. (1) can be written explicitly as$$s_{l,q}(t)= \int_{\Omega} M(X)C_q(X)e^{j\gamma\int_{0}^{t} \left(G_x(\tau)x+G_x(\tau)y+G_{z2}(\tau)\left[\frac{1}{2}((x-x_l)^2+(y-y_l)^2) \right]\right)d\tau}dX (4)$$ In the discrete case, assuming $$$E$$$ is the O-Space encoding matrix and with desired images $$$M\in C^{N\times N}$$$, acquired data $$$s\in C^N$$$, the Eq. (4) simply becomes a matrix equation: $$$s=EM$$$ which includes encodings from all coils and CPs. The desired image recovery problem can be written as the following convex problem,$$\widetilde{M}=argmin\left\{\lambda R(M)+||s-EM||^2_2 \right\}(5)$$ where $$$R(M)$$$ is a penalty function that incorporates the prior knowledge.

The minimization in (5) has been traditional addressed using gradient based methods such as gradient descent or its extensions to higher order derivatives. However, many regularizers of interest result in a non-differentiable objective functional, thus gradient based methods are not applicable. A common solution is to consider a smooth approximation, which however introduces additional parameters and gives non-exact results. A first-order primal dual algorithm¹³, introduced by Chambolle and Pock, directly works with non-smooth convex optimization problems. This primal dual algorithm (PD) has been extended to problems with non-linear forward operators¹⁴, which is suitable for O-Space reconstruction.With PD algorithm, the O-Space images can be reconstructed by repeating the following steps until a convergence criterion is satisfied: $$\begin{cases}h_{n+1}=prox_{\sigma F^*}(h_n+\sigma E(\overline{M}_n)) \\M_{n+1}=prox_{\tau G}(M_n-\tau \left[\triangledown E(M_n)\right]^*(h_{n+1})) \\\overline{M}_{n+1}=M_{n+1}+\theta (M_{n+1}-M_n)\end{cases} (6)$$ where $$$\left[\triangledown E(M_n)\right]^*$$$ is the adjoint of the derivative of $$$E$$$ in point $$$M_n$$$, $$$h$$$ is the dual variable. The proximal mapping of the convex function $$$H(x)$$$ is obtained by the following minimization:$$prox_{\sigma H}(x)=agrmin_{z}\left\{H(z)+\frac{||z-x||^2_2}{2\sigma} \right\} (7)$$

Experiments and Results

We compared the proposed PD method with ART and conjugate gradient (CG) on simulated data. Simulations were performed in MATLAB (The MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA) using one geometric numerical phantom (Resolution: 128×128; FOV: 10cm; Z2: 1.5 mT/m2) and another two brain phantoms (Resolution1: 64×64; Resolution2: 128×128; FOV1: 10cm; FOV2: 20cm; Z2: 0.15 mT/m2). Simulated receiver coil sensitivity profiles of eight element arrays were used to generate O-Space data acquisitions.

Numerical simulations are shown in Figure 1 to compare the reconstructions of undersampled O-Space data with different methods at acceleration factor of 32. As seen in Figure 1, the proposed PD algorithm reconstructs the image more accurately than other methods. And the improvement of the proposed PD algorithm is also indicated by the quantification metrics in Table 1. Figure 2 illustrates the reconstructions on the simulated brain data. The acceleration factor here is 16. The results show that the proposed PD algorithm can remove more artifacts than the previous ART or CG methods.

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

References

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