Multicomponent MR fingerprinting reconstruction using joint‐sparsity and low‐rank constraints

Purpose To develop an efficient algorithm for multicomponent MR fingerprinting (MC‐MRF) reconstructions directly from highly undersampled data without making prior assumptions about tissue relaxation times and expected number of tissues. Methods The proposed method reconstructs MC‐MRF maps from highly undersampled data by iteratively applying a joint‐sparsity constraint to the estimated tissue components. Intermediate component maps are obtained by a low‐rank multicomponent alternating direction method of multipliers (MC‐ADMM) including the non‐negativity of tissue weights as an extra regularization term. Over iterations, the used dictionary compression is adjusted. The proposed method (k‐SPIJN) is compared with a two‐step approach in which image reconstruction and multicomponent estimations are performed sequentially and tested in numerical simulations and in vivo by applying different undersampling factors in eight healthy volunteers. In the latter case, fully sampled data serves as the reference. Results The proposed method shows improved precision and accuracy in simulations compared with a state‐of‐art sequential approach. Obtained in vivo magnetization fraction maps for different tissue types show reduced systematic errors and reduced noise‐like effects. Root mean square errors in estimated magnetization fraction maps significantly reduce from 13.0% ± $$ \pm $$ 5.8% with the conventional, two‐step approach to 9.6% ± $$ \pm $$ 3.9% and 9.6% ± $$ \pm $$ 3.2% with the proposed MC‐ADMM and k‐SPIJN methods, respectively. Mean standard deviation in homogeneous white matter regions reduced significantly from 8.6% to 2.9% (two step vs. k‐SPIJN). Conclusion The proposed MC‐ADMM and k‐SPIJN reconstruction methods estimate MC‐MRF maps from highly undersampled data resulting in improved image quality compared with the existing method.