Resolution enhancement, noise suppression, and joint T2* decay estimation in dual-echo sodium-23 MR imaging using anatomically-guided reconstruction

Purpose: Sodium MRI is challenging because of the low tissue concentration of the 23 Na nucleus and its extremely fast biexponential transverse relaxation rate. In this article, we present an iterative reconstruction framework using dual-echo 23Na data and exploiting anatomical prior information (AGR) from high-resolution, low-noise, 1 H MR images. This framework enables the estimation and modeling of the spatially-varying signal decay due to transverse relaxation during readout (AGRdm), which leads to images of better resolution and reduced noise resulting in improved quantification of the reconstructed 23Na images. Methods: The proposed framework was evaluated using reconstructions of 30 noise realizations of realistic simulations of dual echo twisted projection imaging (TPI) 23 Na data. Moreover, three dual echo 23 Na TPI brain data sets of healthy controls acquired on a 3T Siemens Prisma system were reconstructed using conventional reconstruction, AGR and AGRdm. Results: Our simulations show that compared to conventional reconstructions, AGR and AGRdm show improved bias-noise characteristics in several regions of the brain. Moreover, AGR and AGRdm images show more anatomical detail and less noise in the reconstructions of the experimental data sets. Compared to AGR and the conventional reconstruction, AGRdm shows higher contrast in the sodium concentration ratio between gray and white matter and between gray matter and the brain stem. Conclusion: AGR and AGRdm generate 23 Na images with high resolution, high levels of anatomical detail, and low levels of noise, potentially enabling high-quality 23 Na MR imaging at 3T.