IP Library › Granted Patent US 7,545,966
Granted Patent B2
US 7,545,966 · App. 10/840,412 · Granted Jun 9, 2009

Efficient methods for reconstruction and deblurring of magnetic resonance images

Assignee: Case Western Reserve University
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 7,545,966
App. No.
10/840,412
Granted
Jun 9, 2009
Kind
B2
Abstract

Methods are described for efficient reconstruction of MRI data. In one practice, new reconstruction algorithms for non-uniformly sampled k-space data are presented. In the disclosed algorithms, Iterative Next-Neighbor re-Gridding (INNG) and Block INNG (BINNG), iterative procedures are performed using larger rescaled matrices than the target grid matrix In BINNG algorithm, the sampled k-space region is partitioned into several blocks and the INNG algorithm is applied to each block. In another practice, a novel partial spiral reconstruction (PFSR) uses an estimated phase map from a low-resolution image reconstructed from the central k-space data and performs iterations, similar to the iterative procedures with INNG, with an imposed phase constraint. According to yet another practice, an off-resonance correction is performed on matrices that are smaller than the full image matrix. All these methods reduce the computational costs while rendering high-quality reconstructed images.

Claims (20)

1. A method, comprising:

controlling a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus to perform actions comprising:

accessing a set of non-rectilinearly sampled k-space data;

creating an estimated image phase map φ e from an image reconstructed from central k-space data in the set of non-rectilinearly sampled k-space data;

distributing the set of non-rectilinearly-sampled k-space data on a rectilinear k-space grid without using a k-space gridding interpolation technique to produce a set of distributed data; and

repeating steps within the following curly brackets:

{

inverse Fourier transforming the set of distributed data to produce a set of inverse-Fourier transformed data;

updating the set of inverse-Fourier transformed data by setting to zero a selected portion of the inverse-Fourier transformed data;

updating the set of inverse-Fourier transformed data by imposing a phase constraint on a central portion of the set of inverse-Fourier transformed data, where the phase constraint comports with:

I new =|I old |*exp ( iφ e )

where Inew=image value at a pixel after imposing the phase constraint, and

where Iold=image value at a pixel before imposing the phase constraint;

Fourier transforming the set of inverse-Fourier transformed data to produce an updated set of distributed data;

updating the updated set of distributed data at grid points associated with the selected portion of the set of inverse-Fourier transformed data by selectively replacing a current value at a grid point with a value from the set of distributed data;

}

until a difference between a current version of the set of inverse-Fourier transformed data and a previous version of the set of inverse-Fourier transformed data is less than a threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 , where distributing the set of non-rectilinearly sampled k-space data includes scaling the rectilinear k-space grid by a scaling factor.

3. The method of claim 2 , where the scaling factor is a positive integer power of 2.

4. The method of claim 2 , including increasing the scaling factor on an iteration of the repeated actions.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Oct 21, 2005
From: MORIGUCHI, HISAMOTO; LEWIN, JONATHAN S.; DUERK, JEFFREY L.
To: CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
Reel/Frame 016670/0805 →
Continuity (4)
Provisional Application 6048582300 · Jul 8, 2003
Provisional Application 6048321900 · Jun 27, 2003
Provisional Application 6046817700 · May 5, 2003
Related Publication 20050074152A1 · Apr 7, 2005