Method and system for high-resolution multi-parametric quantitative magnetic resonance imaging

A system for fast high-resolution multi-parametric quantitative magnetic resonance imaging, comprising:

• a pulse sequence design module for designing a fast high-resolution multiple overlapping-echo imaging pulse sequence;
• a sampling parameter determination module for determining sampling parameters of the fast high-resolution multiple overlapping-echo imaging pulse sequence;
• a deep neural network construction module for constructing a deep neural network for reconstructing high-resolution multi-parametric quantitative magnetic resonance images;
• a training sample generation module for generating training samples of the deep neural network;
• a deep neural network training module for using the training samples to train the deep neural network to obtain trained deep neural networks;
• a k-space data acquisition module for scanning a real imaging object using the fast high-resolution multiple overlapping-echo imaging pulse sequence under the sampling parameters to obtain k-space data of the real imaging object;
• an image domain data acquisition module for pre-processing the k-space data of the real imaging object to obtain image domain data of the real imaging object;
• and
• a multi-parametric quantitative magnetic resonance image acquisition module for inputting the image domain data of the real imaging object into the trained deep neural networks for the reconstructing to obtain the high-resolution multi-parametric quantitative magnetic resonance images of the real imaging object, wherein:
• the fast high-resolution multiple overlapping-echo imaging pulse sequence comprises a signal excitation module and a data acquisition module,
• the signal excitation module comprises N radio frequency (RF) excitation pulses with time intervals tn and flip angles αn, slice selection gradients Gss corresponding to the N RF excitation pulses, and echo shift gradients Gn,
• n=1,2, . . . ,N, and N≥2,
• each of the N RF excitation pulses is combined with a corresponding one of the slice selection gradients Gss in a slice selection dimension for slice selection,
• the echo shift gradients Gn are applied after a corresponding RF excitation pulse of the N RF excitation pulses along a frequency encoding dimension and a phase encoding dimension,
• the data acquisition module comprises a pre-phase gradient Gpre, refocusing pulses with time intervals ESP and flip angles βm, crushing gradients Ger, phase encoding gradients Gpe,i,m, frequency encoding gradients Gro, and dephase encoding gradients Gpe,i,m′,
• i represents an ith scanning,
• m=1,2, . . . ,M, and M≥2,
• the pre-phase gradient Gpre is applied along the frequency encoding dimension, and a size of the pre-phase gradient Gpre is half of a corresponding one of the frequency encoding gradients Gro,
• the crushing gradients Ga are applied before and after each refocusing pulse of the M refocusing pulses, and sizes and directions of the crushing gradients Ger along the frequency encoding dimension, the phase encoding dimension, and the slice selection dimension are the same, and
• the phase encoding gradients Gpe,i,m, the frequency encoding gradients Gro, and the dephase encoding gradients Gpe,i,m′ are applied after each refocusing pulse of the M refocusing pulses, the phase encoding gradients Gpe,i,m and the dephase encoding gradients Gpe,i,m′ have same sizes but opposite directions.