Motion robust reconstruction of multi-shot diffusion-weighted images without phase estimation via locally low-rank regularization

A method for multi-shot diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, the method comprising:

• a) acquiring with a magnetic resonance imaging system multiple k-space segments of diffusion-weighted MRI data;
• b) estimating reconstructed multi-shot diffusion weighted images by iteratively performing steps comprising:
• i) calculating updated multi-shot images from the multiple k-space segments and current multi-shot images using a convex model without estimating motion-induced phase;
• ii) constructing multiple locally low-rank spatial-shot matrices from the updated multi-shot images;
• iii) calculating the current multi-shot images from the spatial-shot matrices;
• c) combining the reconstructed multi-shot diffusion weighted images to obtain a reconstructed MRI image.