Predicting dynamic, motion-related changes in B0 field in the brain at a 7T MRI using a subject-specific fine-trained U-net

Abstract

Purpose: Subject movement during the MR examination is inevitable and causes not only image artifacts but also deteriorates the homogeneity of the main magnetic field (B₀ ), which is a prerequisite for high quality data. Thus, characterization of changes to B₀ , for example induced by patient movement, is important for MR applications that are prone to B₀ inhomogeneities.

Methods: We propose a deep learning based method to predict such changes within the brain from the change of the head position to facilitate retrospective or even real-time correction. A 3D U-net was trained on in vivo gradient-echo brain 7T MRI data. The input consisted of B₀ maps and anatomical images at an initial position, and anatomical images at a different head position (obtained by applying a rigid-body transformation on the initial anatomical image). The output consisted of B₀ maps at the new head positions. We further fine-trained the network weights to each subject by measuring a limited number of head positions of the given subject, and trained the U-net with these data.

Results: Our approach was compared to established dynamic B₀ field mapping via interleaved navigators, which suffer from limited spatial resolution and the need for undesirable sequence modifications. Qualitative and quantitative comparison showed similar performance between an interleaved navigator-equivalent method and proposed method.

Conclusion: It is feasible to predict B₀ maps from rigid subject movement and, when combined with external tracking hardware, this information could be used to improve the quality of MR acquisitions without the use of navigators.

Keywords: B0 inhomogeneities; U-net; artificial neural network; deep learning; magnetic resonance imaging; motion correction; patient movement.