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arXiv · 2405.10723

Eddeep: Fast eddy-current distortion correction for diffusion MRI with deep learning

Abstract

Modern diffusion MRI sequences commonly acquire a large number of volumes with diffusion sensitization gradients of differing strengths or directions. Such sequences rely on echo-planar imaging (EPI) to achieve reasonable scan duration. However, EPI is vulnerable to off-resonance effects, leading to tissue susceptibility and eddy-current induced distortions. The latter is particularly problematic because it causes misalignment between volumes, disrupting downstream modelling and analysis. The essential correction of eddy distortions is typically done post-acquisition, with image registration. However, this is non-trivial because correspondence between volumes can be severely disrupted due to volume-specific signal attenuations induced by varying directions and strengths of the applied gradients. This challenge has been successfully addressed by the popular FSL~Eddy tool but at considerable computational cost. We propose an alternative approach, leveraging recent advances in image processing enabled by deep learning (DL). It consists of two convolutional neural networks: 1) An image translator to restore correspondence between images; 2) A registration model to align the translated images. Results demonstrate comparable distortion estimates to FSL~Eddy, while requiring only modest training sample sizes. This work, to the best of our knowledge, is the first to tackle this problem with deep learning. Together with recently developed DL-based susceptibility correction techniques, they pave the way for real-time preprocessing of diffusion MRI, facilitating its wider uptake in the clinic.

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BibTeXRIS

Antoine Legouhy, Ross Callaghan, Whitney Stee, Philippe Peigneux, Hojjat Azadbakht, Hui Zhang. 2025-06-05. Eddeep: Fast eddy-current distortion correction for diffusion MRI with deep learning. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-72069-7_15

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