Research
Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), also known as cardiac MRI, is a medical imaging technology for non-invasive assessment of the function and structure of the cardiovascular system. The development of CMR is an active field of research and continues to see a rapid expansion of new and emerging techniques.
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High-resolution Spiral First-pass Myocardial Perfusion Imaging
First-pass contrast-enhanced myocardial perfusion MRI has proven to be a promising noninvasive technique for evaluating patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD), demonstrating excellent diagnostic and prognostic utility.
Our lab aims to develop fast and high-resolution spiral quantitative perfusion imaging techniques with whole-heart coverage. Specifically, we have demonstrated excellent performances utilizing variable density spiral trajectories, parallel imaging, compressed sensing, outer volume suppression and simultaneous multi-slice techniques.

Related publications:
- Wang, J, Yang, Y, Weller, DS, et al. High spatial resolution spiral first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging with whole-heart coverage at 3 T. Magn Reson Med. 2021; 86: 648– 662. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.28701
- Yang, Y, Meyer, CH, Epstein, FH, Kramer, CM, Salerno, M. Whole‐heart spiral simultaneous multi‐slice first‐pass myocardial perfusion imaging. Magn Reson Med. 2019; 81: 852– 862. HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.1002/MRM.27412
- Yang, Y., Zhao, L., Chen, X., Shaw, P.W., Gonzalez, J.A., Epstein, F.H., Meyer, C.H., Kramer, C.M. and Salerno, M. (2018), Reduced field of view single‐shot spiral perfusion imaging. Magn. Reson. Med., 79: 208-216. doi:10.1002/MRM.26664
- Yang, Y., Kramer, C.M., Shaw, P.W., Meyer, C.H. and Salerno, M. (2016), First-pass myocardial perfusion imaging with whole-heart coverage using L1-SPIRiT accelerated variable density spiral trajectories. Magn. Reson. Med., 76: 1375-1387. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.26014
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DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE) for High-resolution Spiral First-pass Myocardial Perfusion Imaging
Spiral perfusion imaging techniques, using a motion-compensated L1-SPIRiT based reconstruction, are capable of whole-heart high-resolution perfusion imaging. However, this reconstruction is performed off-line and takes ~1 hour per slice. To address this limitation, we developed a DEep learning-based Spiral Image REconstruction technique (DESIRE) for spiral first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging, for both single-slice (SS) and simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) acquisitions, to provide fast and high-quality image reconstruction and make rapid online reconstruction feasible.


Related publications:
- Wang, J, Weller, DS, Kramer, CM, Salerno, M. DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE) for high-resolution spiral first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging. NMR in Biomedicine. 2022;e4661. doi:10.1002/nbm.4661
- Wang J, Weller D, Salerno M. DESIRE: DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Imaging Reconstruction for high-resolution spiral first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging with whole-heart coverage. In Proceedings of the SCMR 24th Annual Scientific Sessions, 2021 (oral presentation, ECA finalist).
- Wang J, Weller DS, Rodriguez Lozano P, Salerno M. High-resolution Spiral First-pass Myocardial Perfusion Imaging using DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE). In Proceedings of the ISMRM 29th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, 2021, p. 23 (digital poster).
- Wang J, Zhou R, Salerno M. Free-breathing High-resolution Spiral Real-time Cardiac Cine Imaging using DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE). In Proceedings of the ISMRM 29th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, 2021, p. 877 (digital poster).
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DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE) for High-resolution Spiral Real-time Cine Imaging
Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) real-time cine imaging, which does not require breath-holding or ECG gating, is clinically useful particularly for patients with impaired breath-hold capacity and/or arrhythmias. Spiral acquisitions, which provide high acquisition efficiency and insensitivity to motion artifacts, can require a long reconstruction time particularly for compressed-sensing or other iterative reconstruction techniques. As such they cannot provide immediate feedback to the imager. We sought to develop high-resolution real-time cine imaging at using fast spiral acquisitions and deep learning-based rapid imaging reconstruction for both bSSFP and GRE imaging, to make high-quality and online reconstruction for cine imaging feasible.



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Related publications:
- Wang J, Zhou R, Wang X, Awad M, Salerno M. DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE) for Free-breathing High-resolution Spiral Real-time Cardiac Cine Imaging at 1.5 T. In Proceedings of the SCMR 25th Annual Scientific Sessions, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA, 2022 (poster).
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Wang J, Zhou R, Salerno M. Free-breathing High-resolution Spiral Real-time Cardiac Cine Imaging using DEep learning-based rapid Spiral Image REconstruction (DESIRE). In Proceedings of the ISMRM 29th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, 2021, p. 877 (digital poster).
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Free Breathing Cine Imaging with Motion-Corrected Reconstruction at 3T Using SPiral Acquisition with Respiratory correction and Cardiac Self-gating (SPARCS)
Cine data were acquired continuously on a 3 T scanner for 8 seconds per slice without ECG gating or breath-holding, using a golden-angle gradient echo spiral pulse sequence. Cardiac motion information was extracted by applying principal component analysis on the gridded 8×8 k-space center data. Based on the previous study, respiratory motion was corrected by rigid registration on each heartbeat. With an 8-second data acquisition per slice, whole heart cine images with clinically acceptable spatial and temporal resolution and image quality can be acquired in less than 90 seconds of free-breathing acquisition.

Related publications:
- Zhou, R, Yang, Y, Mathew, RC, et al. Free-breathing cine imaging with motion-corrected reconstruction at 3T using SPiral Acquisition with Respiratory correction and Cardiac Self-gating (SPARCS). Magn Reson Med. 2019; 82: 706– 720. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.27763
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Cine And T1 mapping SPiral Acquisition with Respiratory and Cardiac Self-gating (CAT-SPARCS)
Based on the SPARCS technique, we proposed to simultaneously perform cine, T1 mapping, and LGE (post contrast) in a single acquisition with whole heart coverage in under 5 minutes.
Related publications:
- Zhou, R, Weller, DS, Yang, Y, et al. Dual-excitation flip-angle simultaneous cine and T1 mapping using spiral acquisition with respiratory and cardiac self-gating. Magn Reson Med. 2021; 86: 82– 96. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.28675
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Respiratory-induced motion artifacts correction for k-t accelerated and compressed-sensing CMR perfusion imaging
We proposed a simple respiratory motion compensation strategy for k-t accelerated and compressed-sensing CMR perfusion imaging to selectively correct respiratory motion of the heart, based on linear k-space phase shifts derived from rigid motion registration of a heart region of interest. The results of phantom and human subjects can be visualized in Figure 1 and Figure 2.


Related publications:
- Zhou, R., Huang, W., Yang, Y. et al. Simple motion correction strategy reduces respiratory-induced motion artifacts for k-t accelerated and compressed-sensing cardiovascular magnetic resonance perfusion imaging. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 20, 6 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12968-018-0427-1