Axisymmetric diffusion kurtosis imaging with Rician bias correction: A simulation study

TY - JOUR

T1 - Axisymmetric diffusion kurtosis imaging with Rician bias correction: A simulation study

AU - Malte Oeschger, Jan

AU - Tabelow, Karsten

AU - Mohammadi, Siawoosh

N1 - © 2022 The Authors. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

PY - 2023/2

Y1 - 2023/2

N2 - PURPOSE: To compare the estimation accuracy of axisymmetric diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) and standard DKI in combination with Rician bias correction (RBC).METHODS: Axisymmetric DKI is more robust against noise-induced variation in the measured signal than standard DKI because of its reduced parameter space. However, its susceptibility to Rician noise bias at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) is unknown. Here, we investigate two main questions: first, does RBC improve estimation accuracy of axisymmetric DKI?; second, is estimation accuracy of axisymmetric DKI increased compared to standard DKI? Estimation accuracy was investigated on the five axisymmetric DKI tensor metrics (AxTM): the parallel and perpendicular diffusivity and kurtosis and mean of the kurtosis tensor, using a noise simulation study based on synthetic data of tissues with varying fiber alignment and in-vivo data focusing on white matter.RESULTS: RBC mainly increased accuracy for the parallel AxTM in tissues with highly to moderately aligned fibers. For the perpendicular AxTM, axisymmetric DKI without RBC performed slightly better than with RBC. However, the combination of axisymmetric DKI with RBC was the overall best performing algorithm across all five AxTM in white matter and axisymmetric DKI itself substantially improved accuracy in axisymmetric tissues with low fiber alignment.CONCLUSION: Combining axisymmetric DKI with RBC facilitates accurate DKI parameter estimation at unprecedented low SNRs ( ≈ 15 $$ \approx 15 $$ ) in white matter, possibly making it a valuable tool for neuroscience and clinical research studies where scan time is a limited resource. The tools used here are available in the open-source ACID toolbox for SPM.

AB - PURPOSE: To compare the estimation accuracy of axisymmetric diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) and standard DKI in combination with Rician bias correction (RBC).METHODS: Axisymmetric DKI is more robust against noise-induced variation in the measured signal than standard DKI because of its reduced parameter space. However, its susceptibility to Rician noise bias at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) is unknown. Here, we investigate two main questions: first, does RBC improve estimation accuracy of axisymmetric DKI?; second, is estimation accuracy of axisymmetric DKI increased compared to standard DKI? Estimation accuracy was investigated on the five axisymmetric DKI tensor metrics (AxTM): the parallel and perpendicular diffusivity and kurtosis and mean of the kurtosis tensor, using a noise simulation study based on synthetic data of tissues with varying fiber alignment and in-vivo data focusing on white matter.RESULTS: RBC mainly increased accuracy for the parallel AxTM in tissues with highly to moderately aligned fibers. For the perpendicular AxTM, axisymmetric DKI without RBC performed slightly better than with RBC. However, the combination of axisymmetric DKI with RBC was the overall best performing algorithm across all five AxTM in white matter and axisymmetric DKI itself substantially improved accuracy in axisymmetric tissues with low fiber alignment.CONCLUSION: Combining axisymmetric DKI with RBC facilitates accurate DKI parameter estimation at unprecedented low SNRs ( ≈ 15 $$ \approx 15 $$ ) in white matter, possibly making it a valuable tool for neuroscience and clinical research studies where scan time is a limited resource. The tools used here are available in the open-source ACID toolbox for SPM.

KW - Diffusion Tensor Imaging/methods

KW - Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods

KW - White Matter/diagnostic imaging

KW - Signal-To-Noise Ratio

KW - Algorithms

KW - Brain/diagnostic imaging

U2 - 10.1002/mrm.29474

DO - 10.1002/mrm.29474

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

C2 - 36198046

VL - 89

SP - 787

EP - 799

JO - MAGN RESON MED

JF - MAGN RESON MED

SN - 0740-3194

IS - 2

ER -