| 1. |
- Ahlgren, André, et al.
(författare)
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Perfusion quantification by model-free arterial spin labeling using nonlinear stochastic regularization deconvolution.
- 2013
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Ingår i: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : Wiley. - 1522-2594 .- 0740-3194. ; 70:5, s. 1470-1480
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: Quantification of cerebral blood flow can be accomplished by model-free arterial spin labeling using the quantitative STAR labeling of arterial regions (QUASAR) sequence. The required deconvolution is normally based on block-circulant singular value decomposition (cSVD)/oscillation SVD (oSVD), an algorithm associated with nonphysiological residue functions and potential effects of arterial dispersion. The aim of this work was to amend this by implementing nonlinear stochastic regularization (NSR) deconvolution, previously used to retrieve realistic residue functions in dynamic susceptibility contrast MRI. METHODS: To characterize the residue function in model-free arterial spin labeling, and possibly to improve absolute cerebral blood flow quantification, NSR was applied to deconvolution of QUASAR data. For comparison, SVD-based deconvolution was also employed. Residue function characteristics and cerebral blood flow values from 10 volunteers were obtained. Simulations were performed to support the in vivo results. RESULTS: NSR was able to resolve realistic residue functions in contrast to the SVD-based methods. Mean cerebral blood flow estimates in gray matter were 36.6 ± 2.6, 28.6 ± 3.3, 40.9 ± 3.6, and 42.9 ± 3.9 mL/100 g/min for cSVD, oSVD, NSR, and NSR with correction for arterial dispersion, respectively. In simulations, the NSR-based perfusion estimates showed better accuracy than the SVD-based approaches. CONCLUSION: Perfusion quantification by model-free arterial spin labeling is evidently dependent on the selected deconvolution method, and NSR is a feasible alternative to SVD-based methods. Magn Reson Med, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Algotsson, Jenny, et al.
(författare)
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Monte Carlo simulations of Donnan equilibrium in cartilage
- 2012
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Ingår i: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : Wiley. - 1522-2594 .- 0740-3194. ; 68:4, s. 1298-1302
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- (23) Na magnetic resonance imaging and the delayed gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging methods to investigate cartilage can be used to determine the fixed charge density of cartilage. The methods give results that differ by a factor of 2. In this study, we use Monte Carlo simulations on a model system of cartilage and find that the difference originates from the Coulombic intermolecular interactions between the ions in the cartilage, and in the synovial fluid. Those interactions are neglected in the standard Donnan analysis that generally is adopted to evaluate magnetic resonance imaging data. Magn Reson Med, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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| 4. |
- Barral, Joelle K., et al.
(författare)
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A Robust Methodology for In Vivo T1 Mapping
- 2010
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Ingår i: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : Wiley. - 0740-3194 .- 1522-2594. ; 64:4, s. 1057-1067
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, a robust methodology for in vivo T(1) mapping is presented. The approach combines a gold standard scanning procedure with a novel fitting procedure. Fitting complex data to a five-parameter model ensures accuracy and precision of the T(1) estimation. A reduced-dimension nonlinear least squares method is proposed. This method turns the complicated multi-parameter minimization into a straightforward one-dimensional search. As the range of possible T(1) values is known, a global grid search can be used, ensuring that a global optimal solution is found. When only magnitude data are available, the algorithm is adapted to concurrently restore polarity. The performance of the new algorithm is demonstrated in simulations and phantom experiments. The new algorithm is as accurate and precise as the conventionally used Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm but much faster. This gain in speed makes the use of the five-parameter model viable. In addition, the new algorithm does not require initialization of the search parameters. Finally, the methodology is applied in vivo to conventional brain imaging and to skin imaging. T(1) values are estimated for white matter and gray matter at 1.5T and for dermis, hypodermis, and muscle at 1.5T, 3T, and 7T. Magn Reson Med 64:1057-1067, 2010.
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| 5. |
- Berglund, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Model-based mapping of fat unsaturation and chain length by chemical shift imaging : phantom validation and in vivo feasibility
- 2012
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Ingår i: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : Wiley. - 0740-3194 .- 1522-2594. ; 68:6, s. 1815-1827
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Knowledge about the triglyceride (fat) 1H spectrum enables quantitative determination of several triglyceride characteristics. This work describes a model-based chemical shift imaging method that separates water and fat signal and provides maps of three triglyceride quantities: fatty acid carbon chain length (CL), number of double bond pairs (ndb), and number of methylene-interrupted double bonds (nmidb). The method was validated by imaging a phantom containing ten different oils using 1.5 T and 3.0 T clinical scanners, with gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) as reference. Repeated acquisitions demonstrated high reproducibility of the method. Statistical tests of correlation and linear regression were performed to examine the accuracy of the method. Significant correlation was found at both field strengths for all three quantities, and high correlation (r2 > 0.96) was found for measuring ndb and nmidb. Feasibility of the method for in vivo imaging of the thigh was demonstrated at both field strengths. The estimates of ndb and nmidb in subcutaneous adipose tisse were in agreement with literature values, while CL appears overestimated. The method has potential use in large-scale cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of triglyceride composition, and its relation to diet and various diseases.
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| 6. |
- Berglund, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Three-dimensional water/fat separation and T2* estimation based on whole-image optimization : application in breathhold liver imaging at 1.5 T
- 2012
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Ingår i: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : Wiley. - 0740-3194 .- 1522-2594. ; 67:6, s. 1684-1693
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The chemical shift of water and fat resonances in proton MRI allows separation of water and fat signal from chemical shift encoded data. This work describes an automatic method that produces separate water and fat images as well as quantitative maps of fat signal fraction and T2* from complex multi-echo gradient recalled datasets. Accurate water and fat separation is challenging due to signal ambiguity at the voxel level. Whole-image optimization can resolve this ambiguity, but might be computationally demanding, especially for three-dimensional (3D) data. In this work, periodicity of the model fit residual as a function of the off-resonance was utilized to modify a previously proposed formulation of the problem. This gives a smaller solution space and allows rapid optimization. Feasibility and accurate separation of water and fat signal was demonstrated in breathhold 3D liver imaging of ten volunteer subjects, with both acquisition and reconstruction times below 20 seconds.
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| 7. |
- Berglund, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Three-point Dixon method enables whole-body water and fat imaging of obese subjects
- 2010
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Ingår i: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : Wiley. - 0740-3194 .- 1522-2594. ; 63:6, s. 1659-1668
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dixon imaging techniques derive chemical shift-separated water and fat images, enabling the quantification of fat content and forming an alternative to fat suppression. Whole-body Dixon imaging is of interest in studies of obesity and the metabolic syndrome, and possibly in oncology. A three-point Dixon method is proposed where two solutions are found analytically in each voxel. The true solution is identified by a multiseed three-dimensional region-growing scheme with a dynamic path, allowing confident regions to be solved before unconfident regions, such as background noise. 2 pi-Phase unwrapping is not required. Whole-body datasets (256 x 184 x 252 voxels) were collected from 39 subjects (body mass index 19.8-45.4 kg/m(2)), in a mean scan time of 5 min 15 sec. Water and fat images were reconstructed offline, using the proposed method and two reference methods. The resulting images were subjectively graded on a four-grade scale by two radiologists, blinded to the method used. The proposed method was found superior to the reference methods. It exclusively received the two highest grades, implying that only mild reconstruction failures were found. The computation time for a whole-body dataset was 1 min 51.5 sec +/- 3.0 sec. It was concluded that whole-body water and fat imaging is feasible even for obese subjects, using the proposed method.
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| 8. |
- Berglund, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Two-point dixon method with flexible echo times
- 2011
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Ingår i: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : Wiley. - 0740-3194 .- 1522-2594. ; 65:4, s. 994-1004
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The two-point Dixon method is a proton chemical shift imaging technique that produces separated water-only and fat-only images from a dual-echo acquisition. It is shown how this can be achieved without the usual constraints on the echo times. A signal model considering spectral broadening of the fat peak is proposed for improved water/fat separation. Phase errors, mostly due to static field inhomogeneity, must be removed prior to least-squares estimation of water and fat. To resolve ambiguity of the phase errors, a corresponding global optimization problem is formulated and solved using a message-passing algorithm. It is shown that the noise in the water and fat estimates matches the Cramér-Rao bounds, and feasibility is demonstrated for in vivo abdominal breath-hold imaging. The water-only images were found to offer superior fat suppression compared with conventional spectrally fat suppressed images.
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| 9. |
- Björk, Marcus, et al.
(författare)
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Parameter estimation approach to banding artifact reduction in balanced steady-state free precession
- 2014
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Ingår i: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : Wiley. - 1522-2594 .- 0740-3194. ; 72:3, s. 880-892
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) pulse sequence has shown to be of great interest due to its high signal-to-noise ratio efficiency. However, bSSFP images often suffer from banding artifacts due to off-resonance effects, which we aim to minimize in this paper. Methods: We present a general and fast two-step algorithm for 1) estimating the unknowns in the bSSFP signal model from multiple phase-cycled acquisitions, and 2) reconstructing band-free images. The first step, Linearization for Off-Resonance Estimation (LORE), solves the nonlinear problem approximately by a robust linear approach. The second step applies a Gauss-Newton algorithm, initialized by LORE, to minimize the nonlinear least squares criterion. We name the full algorithm LORE-GN. Results: We derive the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB), a theoretical lower bound of the variance for any unbiased estimator, and show that LORE-GN is statistically efficient. Furthermore, we show that simultaneous estimation of T1 and T2 from phase-cycled bSSFP is difficult, since the CRB is high at common SNR. Using simulated, phantom, and in vivo data, we illustrate the band-reduction capabilities of LORE-GN compared to other techniques, such as sum-of-squares. Conclusion: Using LORE-GN we can successfully minimize banding artifacts in bSSFP.
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| 10. |
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