MEDI+0: Morphology enabled dipole inversion with automatic uniform cerebrospinal fluid zero reference for quantitative susceptibility mapping

• Published in: Magnetic resonance in medicine Vol. 79; no. 5; pp. 2795 - 2803
• Main Authors: Liu, Zhe, Spincemaille, Pascal, Yao, Yihao, Zhang, Yan, Wang, Yi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.05.2018
• Subjects: Cerebrospinal fluid; Computer simulation; Corpus callosum; CSF homogeneity; Dipoles; Globus pallidus; Homogeneity; Image quality; In vivo methods and tests; Lesions; Magnetic permeability; Magnetic resonance; Magnetic resonance imaging; Mapping; Mathematical models; Morphology; Multiple sclerosis; QSM; Regularization; Reproducibility; Substantia nigra; Variation; Ventricle; Ventricle (lateral); zero reference; zero reference; CSF homogeneity; QSM
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.26946
• ISSN: 0740-3194; 1522-2594

Purpose To develop a quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) method with a consistent zero reference using minimal variation in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) susceptibility. Theory and Methods The ventricular CSF was automatically segmented on the R2* map. An L2‐regularization was used to enforce CSF susceptibility homogeneity within the segmented region, with the averaged CSF susceptibility as the zero reference. This regularization for CSF homogeneity was added to the model used in a prior QSM method (morphology enabled dipole inversion [MEDI]). Therefore, the proposed method was referred to as MEDI+0 and compared with MEDI in a numerical simulation, in multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, and in a reproducibility study in healthy subjects. Results In both the numerical simulations and in vivo experiments, MEDI+0 not only decreased the susceptibility variation within the ventricular CSF, but also suppressed the artifact near the lateral ventricles. In the simulation, MEDI+0 also provided more accurate quantification compared to MEDI in the globus pallidus, substantia nigra, corpus callosum, and internal capsule. MEDI+0 measurements of MS lesion susceptibility were in good agreement with those obtained by MEDI. Finally, both MEDI+0 and MEDI showed good and similar intrasubject reproducibility. Conclusion QSM with a minimal variation in ventricular CSF is viable to provide a consistent zero reference while improving image quality. Magn Reson Med 79:2795–2803, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.