High-Resolution Diffusion Tensor Imaging with 3D Long-Axis PROPELLER-EPI (3D-LAP-EPI)

Motivation: 2D-PROPELLER-EPI takes advantage of higher SNR and reduced geometric distortion compared to single-shot EPI. 3D-PROPELLER-EPI may further improve the through-plane resolution and SNR but at the cost of scan time. Goal(s): To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed reconstruction and acquisition method for 3D-PROPELLER-EPI in high-resolution diffusion tensor imaging within feasible scan time. Approach: We proposed a reconstruction framework and highly-accelerated acquisition patterns based on data sharing to achieve robust performance for recovering diffusion-weighted images. Results: The proposed method produces comparable quality of diffusion-weighted images to those from unaccelerated data using 3D-PROPELLER-EPI. Impact: This study verifies the feasibility of 3D long-axis PROPELLER-EPI in high-resolution diffusion tensor imaging enabled by the proposed reconstruction framework and the highly-accelerated acquisition patterns based on data sharing along both kz- and diffusion-direction.