Reconstruction for 7T high‐resolution whole‐brain diffusion MRI using two‐stage N/2 ghost correction and L1‐SPIRiT without single‐band reference

Purpose To combine a new two‐stage N/2 ghost correction and an adapted L1‐SPIRiT method for reconstruction of 7T highly accelerated whole‐brain diffusion MRI (dMRI) using only autocalibration scans (ACS) without the need of additional single‐band reference (SBref) scans. Methods The proposed ghost correction consisted of a 3‐line reference approach in stage 1 and the reference‐free entropy method in stage 2. The adapted L1‐SPIRiT method was formulated within the 3D k‐space framework. Its efficacy was examined by acquiring two dMRI data sets at 1.05‐mm isotropic resolutions with a total acceleration of 6 or 9 (i.e., 2‐fold or 3‐fold slice and 3‐fold in‐plane acceleration). Diffusion analysis was performed to derive DTI metrics and estimate fiber orientation distribution functions (fODFs). The results were compared with those of 3D k‐space GRAPPA using only ACS, all in reference to 3D k‐space GRAPPA using both ACS and SBref (serving as a reference). Results The proposed ghost correction eliminated artifacts more robustly than conventional approaches. Our adapted L1‐SPIRiT method outperformed 3D k‐space GRAPPA when using only ACS, improving image quality to what was achievable with 3D k‐space GRAPPA using both ACS and SBref scans. The improvement in image quality further resulted in an improvement in estimation performances for DTI and fODFs. Conclusion The combination of our new ghost correction and adapted L1‐SPIRiT method can reliably reconstruct 7T highly accelerated whole‐brain dMRI without the need of SBref scans, increasing acquisition efficiency and reducing motion sensitivity.