Accelerated multi‐shell diffusion MRI with Gaussian process estimated reconstruction of multi‐band imaging

Abstract Purpose This work aims to propose a robust reconstruction method exploiting shared information across shells to increase the acquisition speed of multi‐shell diffusion‐weighted MRI (dMRI), enabling rapid tissue microstructure mapping. Theory and Methods Local q‐space points share similar information. Gaussian Process can exploit the q‐space smoothness in a data‐driven way and provide q‐space signal estimation based on the signals from a q‐space neighborhood. The Diffusion Acceleration with Gaussian process Estimated Reconstruction (DAGER) method uses the signal estimation from Gaussian process as a prior in a joint k‐q reconstruction and improves image quality under high acceleration factors compared to conventional (k‐only) reconstruction. In this work, we extend the DAGER method by introducing a multi‐shell covariance function and correcting for Rician noise distribution in magnitude data when fitting the Gaussian process model. The method was evaluated with both simulation and in vivo data. Results Simulated and in‐vivo results demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly improve the image quality of reconstructed dMRI data with high acceleration both in‐plane and slice‐wise, achieving a total acceleration factor of 12. The improvement of image quality allows more robust diffusion model fitting compared to conventional reconstruction methods, enabling advanced multi‐shell diffusion analysis within much shorter scan time. Conclusion The proposed method enables highly accelerated dMRI which can shorten the scan time of multi‐shell dMRI without sacrificing quality compared to conventional practice. This may facilitate a wider application of advanced dMRI models in basic and clinical neuroscience.