Model-Based Reconstruction for Simultaneous Multi-Slice T1 Mapping using Single-Shot Inversion-Recovery Radial FLASH

Abstract

Purpose: To develop a single-shot multi-slice T1 mapping method by combing simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) excitations, single-shot inversion-recovery (IR) radial fast low-angle shot (FLASH) and a nonlinear model-based reconstruction method. Methods: SMS excitations are combined with a single-shot IR radial FLASH sequence for data acquisition. A previously developed single-slice calibrationless model-based reconstruction is extended to SMS, formulating the estimation of parameter maps and coil sensitivities from all slices as a single nonlinear inverse problem. Joint-sparsity constraints are further applied to the parameter maps to improve T1 precision. Validations of the proposed method are performed for a phantom and for the human brain and liver in six healthy adult subjects. Results: Phantom results confirm good T1 accuracy and precision of the simultaneously acquired multi-slice T1 maps in comparison to single-slice references. In-vivo human brain studies demonstrate the better performance of SMS acquisitions compared to the conventional spoke-interleaved multi-slice acquisition using model-based reconstruction. Apart from good accuracy and precision, the results of six healthy subjects in both brain and abdominal studies confirm good repeatability between scan and re-scans. The proposed method can simultaneously acquire T1 maps for five slices of a human brain ($0.75\times 0.75\times 5$ mm${}^3$) or three slices of the abdomen ($1.25\times 1.25\times 6$ mm${}^3$) within four seconds. Conclusion: The IR SMS radial FLASH acquisition together with a non-linear model-based reconstruction enable rapid high-resolution multi-slice T1 mapping with good accuracy, precision, and repeatability.

arXiv commentPart of this work has been presented at the ISMRM Annual Conference 2019 (Montreal), accepted by Magnetic Resonance in Medicine

References in corpus (2)

• Model-Based Iterative Reconstruction for Radial Fast Spin-Echo MRI
• Simultaneous Multi-Slice MRI using Cartesian and Radial FLASH and Regularized Nonlinear Inversion: SMS-NLINV

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