High-Resolution Quantitative T1 Map Estimation for Brain MRI with Clinically Practical Scan Durations

Motivation: Accurately measuring T1 relaxation time enables the enhancement of the visibility of structures. However, the necessity for multiple scans results in an acquisition time that is impractically long for clinical MRI. Goal(s): We aim to estimate high-resolution T1 maps from rapid brain MRI within a clinically acceptable duration. Approach: We devised an imaging protocol for rapid brain MRI. We integrated super-resolution and data synthesis strategies to generate high-resolution T1-weighted images for estimating of T1 maps at 0.7mm high isotropic resolution. Results: Experiments demonstrated that our method outperformed existing techniques in quantitative T1 map estimation on 90 brain MRI volumes from 10 subjects. Impact: We developed a methodology for estimating high-resolution T1 maps from a minimal set of low-resolution images acquired in around 6 minutes, allowing for accurately measuring quantitative T1 relaxation times at 0.7mm high isotropic resolution.