Magnetic resonance coherence pathway unraveling.

Efficiently acquiring multi-contrast magnetic resonance imaging data is crucial for patient comfort and clinical throughput. Developing scan acceleration methods tailored for specific applications drastically improves the value of an MRI examination. Here, we propose a novel method to control the aliasing of simultaneously acquired images of multiple spin echo coherence pathways with the goal of producing high quality multi-contrast images from a single acquisition.

Low-rank inversion reconstruction for through-plane accelerated radial MR fingerprinting applied to relaxometry at 0.35 T.

Purpose: To reduce scan time, methods to accelerate phase-encoded/non-Cartesian MR fingerprinting (MRF) acquisitions for variable density spiral acquisitions have recently been developed. These methods are not applicable to MRF acquisitions, wherein a single k-space spoke is acquired per frame. Therefore, we propose a low-rank inversion method to resolve MRF contrast dynamics from through-plane accelerated Cartesian/radial measurements applied to quantitative relaxation-time mapping on a 0.

Toward magnetic resonance fingerprinting for low-field MR-guided radiation therapy.

Purpose: The acquisition of multiparametric quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) is becoming increasingly important for functional characterization of cancer prior to- and throughout the course of radiation therapy. The feasibility of a qMRI method known as magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) for rapid T and T mapping was assessed on a low-field MR-linac system.

Methods: A three-dimensional MRF sequence was implemented on a 0.

On the use of low-dimensional temporal subspace constraints to reduce reconstruction time and improve image quality of accelerated 4D-MRI.

Background And Purpose: The purpose of this work is to investigate the use of low-dimensional temporal subspace constraints for 4D-MRI reconstruction from accelerated data in the context of MR-guided online adaptive radiation therapy (MRgOART).

Materials And Methods: Subspace basis functions are derived directly from the accelerated golden angle radial stack-of-stars 4D-MRI data. The reconstruction times, image quality, and motion estimates are investigated as a function of the number of subspace coefficients and compared with a conventional frame-by-frame reconstruction.

Split-slice training and hyperparameter tuning of RAKI networks for simultaneous multi-slice reconstruction.

Purpose: Simultaneous multi-slice acquisitions are essential for modern neuroimaging research, enabling high temporal resolution functional and high-resolution q-space sampling diffusion acquisitions. Recently, deep learning reconstruction techniques have been introduced for unaliasing these accelerated acquisitions, and robust artificial-neural-networks for k-space interpolation (RAKI) have shown promising capabilities. This study systematically examines the impacts of hyperparameter selections for RAKI networks, and introduces a novel technique for training data generation which is analogous to the split-slice formalism used in slice-GRAPPA.

A Patient-Specific Autosegmentation Strategy Using Multi-Input Deformable Image Registration for Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Guided Online Adaptive Radiation Therapy: A Feasibility Study.

Purpose: Magnetic resonance-guided online adaptive radiation therapy (MRgOART) requires accurate and efficient segmentation. However, the performance of current autosegmentation tools is generally poor for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) owing to day-to-day variations in image intensity and patient anatomy. In this study, we propose a patient-specific autosegmentation strategy using multiple-input deformable image registration (DIR; PASSMID) to improve segmentation accuracy and efficiency for MRgOART.

4D-MRI driven MR-guided online adaptive radiotherapy for abdominal stereotactic body radiation therapy on a high field MR-Linac: Implementation and initial clinical experience.

Background And Purpose: In this report, we describe our implementation and initial clinical experience using 4D-MRI driven MR-guided online adaptive radiotherapy (MRgOART) for abdominal stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) on the Elekta Unity MR-Linac.

Materials And Methods: Eleven patients with abdominal malignancies were treated with free-breathing SBRT in three to five fractions on a 1.5 T MR-Linac.

Generalized simultaneous multi-orientation 2D imaging.

Purpose: Flexibility in slice prescription is critical for precise motion monitoring during MR-guided therapies. Adding more slices to improve spatial coverage during rapid 2D cine imaging often hampers temporal resolution. This work describes a framework to simultaneously acquire multiple arbitrarily oriented slices which share a common frequency encoding axis.

Simultaneous acquisition of orthogonal plane cine imaging and isotropic 4D-MRI using super-resolution.

Introduction: Effective management of intrafraction motion is critical to the success of MR-guided radiation therapy (MR-gRT) of abdominal or thoracic tumors. Recent developments have proposed the use of cine MRI to monitor motion and 4D-MRI to aid in the reconstruction of dose actually delivered to patients. The present work aims to develop and perform preliminary testing of an imaging framework capable of simultaneously acquiring orthogonal plane cine imaging and isotropic resolution 4D-MRI volumes using super-resolution methods.

Simultaneous motion monitoring and truth-in-delivery analysis imaging framework for MR-guided radiotherapy.

Intrafraction motion (i.e. motion occurring during a treatment session) can play a pivotal role in the success of abdominal and thoracic radiation therapy.

Simultaneous orthogonal plane cine imaging with balanced steady-state free-precession contrast using k-t GRAPPA.

The goal of this study is to present a framework that allows cine images in orthogonal planes to be reconstructed simultaneously using slice-interleaved acquisitions and k-t GRAPPA. Slice-interleaved acquisitions can be interpreted as an undersampled k-t space in which data are desired at skipped frames. Local spatiotemporal correlations can be exploited to interpolate the skipped data to reconstruct images in orthogonal slice groups simultaneously.

Investigation of undersampling and reconstruction algorithm dependence on respiratory correlated 4D-MRI for online MR-guided radiation therapy.

The purpose of this work is to investigate the effects of undersampling and reconstruction algorithm on the total processing time and image quality of respiratory phase-resolved 4D MRI data. Specifically, the goal is to obtain quality 4D-MRI data with a combined acquisition and reconstruction time of five minutes or less, which we reasoned would be satisfactory for pre-treatment 4D-MRI in online MRI-gRT. A 3D stack-of-stars, self-navigated, 4D-MRI acquisition was used to scan three healthy volunteers at three image resolutions and two scan durations.

Simultaneous orthogonal plane imaging.

Purpose: Intrafraction motion can result in a smearing of planned external beam radiation therapy dose distributions, resulting in an uncertainty in dose actually deposited in tissue. The purpose of this paper is to present a pulse sequence that is capable of imaging a moving target at a high frame rate in two orthogonal planes simultaneously for MR-guided radiotherapy.

Theory: By balancing the zero gradient moment on all axes, slices in two orthogonal planes may be spatially encoded simultaneously.

Wavelet Domain Radiofrequency Pulse Design Applied to Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

A new method for designing radiofrequency (RF) pulses with numerical optimization in the wavelet domain is presented. Numerical optimization may yield solutions that might otherwise have not been discovered with analytic techniques alone. Further, processing in the wavelet domain reduces the number of unknowns through compression properties inherent in wavelet transforms, providing a more tractable optimization problem.

Location of brain tumor intersecting white matter tracts predicts patient prognosis.

Brain tumor cells invade adjacent normal brain along white matter (WM) bundles of axons. We therefore hypothesized that the location of tumor intersecting WM tracts would be associated with differing survival. This study introduces a method, voxel-wise survival analysis (VSA), to determine the relationship between the location of brain tumor intersecting WM tracts and patient prognosis.

Precise ex vivo histological validation of heightened cellularity and diffusion-restricted necrosis in regions of dark apparent diffusion coefficient in 7 cases of high-grade glioma.

Background: Recent conflicting reports have found both brain tumor hypercellularity and necrosis in regions of restricted diffusion on MRI-derived apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) images. This study precisely compares ADC and cell density voxel by voxel using postmortem human whole brain samples.

Methods: Patients with meningioma were evaluated to determine a normative ADC distribution within benign fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) T2/hyperintensity surrounding tumor.