CALF-GAN: Multi-scale convolutional attention for latent feature-guided cross-modality MR image synthesis

Multimodal medical image synthesis plays a crucial supportive role in research within the field of biomechanics, providing high-precision data and analytical methods for studies on anatomical structures, tissue characteristics, and mechanical modeling. However, due to practical constraints, certain modalities of medical images may be difficult to obtain, posing challenges for model training and high-accuracy biomechanical research. Existing methods employ convolutional neural network (CNN)-based generative adversarial models to synthesize missing modality information across modalities. However, CNNs are limited in their ability to model long-range dependencies. Transformers offer a new paradigm to address these limitations, yet their high computational and memory demands remain a significant drawback. To tackle these challenges, we propose a novel generative adversarial model, termed the Convolutional Attention Latent Feature GAN (CALF-GAN), which leverages multi-scale convolutional attention for cross-modal medical image synthesis. A dedicated latent attribute separation module is employed to disentangle modality-specific features between source and target modality images, enhancing the synthesis of medical semantics, such as pixel intensity values. Furthermore, to improve the model’s capacity for long-range dependency modeling while reducing computational overhead, we design a generation module based on multi-scale convolutional attention, capturing long-range dependencies using only convolutional operations. Extensive experiments conducted on various medical image datasets demonstrate that CALF-GAN achieves remarkable generalizability and outstanding overall performance under low memory requirements, making it well-suited for application in high-precision biomechanics research.