US 12,130,347 B2
Magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, image processing apparatus, and image processing method
Tomoki Amemiya, Chiba (JP); Toru Shirai, Chiba (JP); Atsuro Suzuki, Chiba (JP); Yukio Kaneko, Chiba (JP); Hiroki Shoji, Chiba (JP); and Keisuke Nishio, Chiba (JP)
Assigned to FUJIFILM Corporation, Tokyo (JP)
Filed by FUJIFILM Healthcare Corporation, Kashiwa (JP)
Filed on Oct. 20, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/969,884.
Claims priority of application No. 2021-182079 (JP), filed on Nov. 8, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0142011 A1, May 11, 2023
Int. Cl. G01R 33/56 (2006.01); G01R 33/561 (2006.01); G06T 11/00 (2006.01)
CPC G01R 33/5608 (2013.01) [G01R 33/5611 (2013.01); G06T 11/008 (2013.01); G06T 2211/424 (2013.01)] 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus comprising:
a measurement unit including a plurality of reception coils and configured to collect a nuclear magnetic resonance signal of a subject for each of the reception coils;
a control unit configured to control a collection pattern for the nuclear magnetic resonance signal; and
an image processing unit configured to reconstruct a denoised image of the subject by using measurement data including the nuclear magnetic resonance signal collected for said each of the reception coils, wherein the image processing unit includes:
a noise amount estimation unit configured to estimate a noise amount of a parallel-reconstructed image, the noise estimation including correction of the parallel-reconstructed image (i) by a G-factor representing a spatial distribution of a noise amplification ratio and (ii) by an R-factor as a reduction factor; and
an iterative reconstruction unit configured to reconstruct a reconstructed image by a repeated calculation using the measurement data for each of the reception coils,
wherein the iterative reconstruction unit includes:
an initial value setting unit configured to set initial image data for the repeated calculation based on the measurement data for each of the reception coils;
a synthesis unit configured to synthesize a synthesized image for each of the reception coils;
a noise removal unit configured to remove noise included in the synthesized image based on statistical properties of the synthesized image and the noise and based on a parameter adjusted based on the estimated noise amount; and
a data consistency maintenance unit configured to create denoised k-space data for each of the reception coils, by using the denoised image and to create estimated measurement data by integrating the denoised k-space data and the measurement data, and
the iterative reconstruction unit is configured to perform iterative processing while updating the initial value based on the estimated measurement data.