Objective

Scan time reduction is necessary for volumetric acquisitions to improve workflow productivity and to reduce motion artifacts during MRI procedures. We explored the possibility that Compressed Sensing-4 (CS-4) can be employed with 3D-turbo-field-echo T1-weighted (3D-TFE-T1W) sequence without compromising subcortical measurements on clinical 1.5 T MRI.

Materials and methods

Thirty-three healthy volunteers (24 females, 9 males) underwent imaging scans on a 1.5 T MRI equipped with a 12-channel head coil. 3D-TFE-T1W for whole-brain coverage was performed with different acceleration factors, including SENSE-2, SENSE-4, CS-4. Freesurfer, FSL’s FIRST, and volBrain packages were utilized for subcortical segmentation. All processed data were assessed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Results

The results obtained from SENSE-2 were considered as references. For SENSE-4, the maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) drop was detected in the Accumbens (51.96%). For CS-4, the maximum SNR drop was detected in the Amygdala (10.55%). Since the SNR drop in CS-4 is relatively small, the SNR in all of the subcortical volumes obtained from SENSE-2 and CS-4 are not statistically different (P > 0.05), and their Pearson’s correlation coefficients are larger than 0.90. The maximum biases of SENSE-4 and CS-4 were found in the Thalamus with the mean of differences of 1.60 ml and 0.18 ml, respectively.

Conclusion

CS-4 provided sufficient quality of 3D-TFE-T1W images for 1.5 T MRI equipped with a 12-channel receiver coil. Subcortical volumes obtained from the CS-4 images are consistent among different post-processing packages.

中文翻译：

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使用压缩传感加速 3D T1 加权 MRI 的可行性：应用于人脑结构的定量体积测量

客观的

体积采集需要减少扫描时间，以提高工作流程生产力并减少 MRI 过程中的运动伪影。我们探讨了 Compressed Sensing-4 (CS-4) 可用于 3D-turbo-field-echo T1-weighted (3D-TFE-T1W) 序列而不影响临床 1.5 T MRI 的皮层下测量的可能性。

材料和方法

33 名健康志愿者（24 名女性，9 名男性）在配备 12 通道头部线圈的 1.5 T MRI 上进行了成像扫描。用于全脑覆盖的 3D-TFE-T1W 使用不同的加速因子进行，包括 SENSE-2、SENSE-4、CS-4。Freesurfer、FSL 的 FIRST 和 volBrain 软件包用于皮层下分割。使用 Wilcoxon 符号秩检验评估所有处理过的数据。

结果

从 SENSE-2 获得的结果被认为是参考。对于 SENSE-4，在伏隔座中检测到最大信噪比 (SNR) 下降 (51.96%)。对于 CS-4，在杏仁核中检测到最大 SNR 下降 (10.55%)。由于 CS-4 的 SNR 下降相对较小，从 SENSE-2 和 CS-4 获得的所有皮层下体积的 SNR 没有统计学差异（P  > 0.05），并且它们的 Pearson 相关系数大于 0.90。在丘脑中发现了 SENSE-4 和 CS-4 的最大偏差，差异的平均值分别为 1.60 ml 和 0.18 ml。

结论

CS-4 为配备 12 通道接收器线圈的 1.5 T MRI 提供了足够质量的 3D-TFE-T1W 图像。从 CS-4 图像获得的皮层下体积在不同的后处理包中是一致的。