Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

By shortening the acquisition time of MRI, Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) enables the acquisition of a large number of images in a short time, compatible with clinical constraints as required for diffusion or functional MRI. However such images are subject to large, local distortions disrupting their correspondence with the underlying anatomy. The correction of those distortions is an open problem, especially in regions where large deformations occur. We propose a new block-matching registration method to perform EPI distortion correction based on the acquisition of two EPI with opposite phase encoding directions (PED). It relies on new transformations between blocks adapted to the EPI distortion model, and on an adapted optimization scheme to ensure an opposite symmetric transformation. We present qualitative and quantitative results of the block-matching correction using different metrics on a phantom dataset and on in-vivo data. We show the ability of the block-matching to robustly correct EPI distortion even in strongly affected areas.

Original publication

DOI

10.1109/TMI.2016.2646920

Type

Journal article

Journal

IEEE Trans Med Imaging

Publication Date

05/2017

Volume

36

Pages

1106 - 1115

Keywords

Algorithms, Artifacts, Brain, Echo-Planar Imaging, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Phantoms, Imaging