a­f BLAST: A Non­Iterative Radial k­t BLAST Reconstruction in Radon Space

Madison Kretzler1 , Jesse Hamilton 2 , Mark Griswold 2,3 , and Nicole Seiberlich 2,3

1 Electrical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States, 2 Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States, 3 Radiology, University
Hospitals, Cleveland, OH, United States

Synopsis

This abstract presents a­f BLAST, a non­iterative approach to non­Cartesian k­t BLAST for radial trajectories, and demonstrates its use for
accelerated cardiac imaging.
Purpose
k­t BLAST 1 is a technique that works in the spatiotemporal frequency domain (x­f space) to resolve aliasing caused by lattice undersampling of the k­t
space. Due to the strategic k­t sampling pattern, aliasing patterns in the in the x­f space are predictable and can be resolved using additional
information from a training dataset. Previous methods for extending the concepts of k­t BLAST to non­Cartesian trajectories focused on solving the
general inversion problem using an iterative conjugate gradient (CG) method2, but this approach can be time­consuming and does not take advantage
of the symmetry inherent in some commonly­used trajectories. This method presents a non­iterative extension of Cartesian k­t BLAST to dynamic
radial imaging by using the radial symmetry of the data to simplify the reconstruction problem.
Methods

In Cartesian k­t BLAST the k­space is undersampled in an interleaved fashion, which produces an offset aliasing pattern in the x­f space. Unlike
Cartesian data, radially sampled data does not produce an aliased image with the clear aliasing artifacts required for k­t BLAST. However, the Radon
transform of the underlying image can be generated by performing a Fourier transform only along the read­out direction; a subsequent Fourier
transform along the projection direction will result in aliasing artifacts that are similar to those seen in Cartesian k­t BLAST. We refer to this domain as
the “aliased space,” as shown in Figure 1. This space can then be Fourier transformed through time to obtain a type of x­f space, which we call the a­f
space, where the necessary offset aliasing is present to perform the k­t BLAST reconstruction. Low­resolution training data can be obtained from the
center of k­space of the undersampled radial data. After the k­t BLAST reconstruction in a­f space, the reconstructed data are transformed back into
radial k­space, and then gridded using the NUFFT 3. This technique was first applied to in­vivo cardiac breathheld cine scans downsampled to mimic
different acceleration factors. These data were collected along an interleaved radial trajectory on a Siemens Skyra 3T whole­body scanner with a
bSSFP sequence using TR = 29 ms, TE = 1.5ms, BW = 1 kHz, FoV = 300mm, spatial resolution = 2.3x2.3x8.0 mm3, flip­angle = 57 degrees. Matrix
dimensions were 128x128 with 144 fully sampled projections for the cine and 144/R for the accelerated scans. The fully­sampled cine images were
used to calculate RMSE values for the reconstructed image series. Additionally, a­f BLAST was applied to prospectively accelerated real­time radial
scans with R=4 and the same scan parameters as the cine dataset with the following exceptions: TR=2.94ms, flip angle=37 degrees.
Results

Figure 2 shows that a­f BLAST reduces the radial artifacts from a retrospectively undersampled cine dataset with R=4 without compromising the
temporal resolution in the x­t images. Figure 3 shows the RMSE values for reconstructions of varying acceleration factors. It can be seen for
increasing accelerations RMSE values steadily increase and image quality deteriorates. Figure 4 shows the performance of a­f BLAST for
prospectively accelerated R=4 radial data. Figure 5 is a gif showing the same dataset as Figure 4 in an animated form.
Discussion/Conclusion
a­f BLAST, or non­iterative non­Cartesian k­t BLAST performed in Radon space, may enable a significantly faster reconstruction of radially
undersampled images by removing the gridding/degridding steps required in non­Cartesian k­t BLAST.2 The a­f BLAST approach does not require a
separate training dataset, as the center of k­space can be used as the low­resolution training data. However, the two techniques have not been
compared for speed or performance, which depends on the relative sparsity of the data in each of the domains (a­f vs. x­f). a­f BLAST also presents a
new space which can be used to rapidly reconstruct undersampled radial data, which may be advantageous for other reconstruction techniques,
including non­Cartesian parallel imaging and compressed sensing.
Acknowledgements
No acknowledgement found.
References
1. Tsao, J., Boesiger, P. & Pruessmann, K. P. k­t BLAST and k­t SENSE: Dynamic MRI With High Frame Rate Exploiting Spatiotemporal Correlations.
Magn. Reson. Med. 50, 1031–1042 (2003).

2. Hansen, M. S. et al. k­t BLAST reconstruction from non­Cartesian k­t space sampling. Magn. Reson. Med. 55, 85–91 (2006).

3. Fessler, J. A. & Sutton, B. P. Nonuniform fast fourier transforms using min­max interpolation. IEEE Trans. Signal Process. 51, 560–574 (2003).
Figures

Figure 1: Undersampled interleaved radial data (far left) can be transformed into a space that has an appearance similar to undersampled Cartesian data in x­f space (far right) by performing Fourier
transforms along each dimension without gridding. The aliasing in this a­f space can be resolved with a k­t BLAST reconstruction, followed by gridding of the radial data to generate an image.

Figure 2: An example of a­f BLAST, showing (top) the fully­sampled in­vivo cardiac cine, R=4 Nyquist­sampled, R=4 zero­filled, and R=4 reconstructed images, and x­t images of single heartbeat for each
(bottom).
 Figure 3: a­f BLAST reconstructions of the same retrospectively undersampled radial cine data as Figure 2 and their RMSE values with varying acceleration factors.

Figure 4: a­f BLAST performed on prospectively accelerated cardiac images with a temporal resolution of 105.84ms and R = 4 for frames in diastole (top), systole (center), and the x­t space (bottom).

Figure 5: Gif of the R=4 a­f BLAST reconstructions from Figure 4 showing zero­filled, Nyquist­sampled, and a­f BLAST images (from left to right).

Proc. Intl. Soc. Mag. Reson. Med. 24 (2016) 0095