Ultra-Fast Submillimeter Whole Brain QSM Using Highly Accelerated 3D Echo-Planar Imaging with a Complex Convolutional Neural Network

Motivation: To restore image quality of highly accelerated QSM for data interpretation. Goal(s): To evaluate the feasibility of a denoising convolutional neural network for generating high-quality submillimeter isotropic QSM acquired in 2-3 minutes at 3-Tesla. Approach: A previously developed network for denoising complex-valued MRI data was applied to accelerated 3D-EPI scans (TA: 2min and 3min). Image quality was evaluated and QSM values obtained with and without denoising were compared against reference non-accelerated non-denoised 3D-EPI (TA: 6min). Results: SNR and structural measures demonstrated improved image quality when denoising the accelerated data. Similar QSM values were observed for both highly accelerated denoised 3D-EPI and reference 3D-EPI. Impact: Our approach for denoising complex-valued 3D-EPI brain images shows the feasibility of producing high-quality, whole-brain, submillimeter isotropic QSM acquired in 2-3 minutes at 3-Tesla, facilitating its clinical adoption.