Abstract #0772

A Robust Spherical Deconvolution Method for the Analysis of Low SNR or Low Angular Resolution Diffusion Data

Jacques-Donald Tournier¹,², Fernando Calamante,²³, Alan Connelly¹,²

¹Advanced MRI development, The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; ²Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; ³Advanced MRI development, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Analysis of low SNR, low b-value, or low angular resolution DWI data is difficult using HARDI methods such as spherical deconvolution. We propose to improve the robustness of spherical deconvolution to handle such data by including Rician correction and a constraint on the smoothness along fibres along with the commonly-used non-negativity constraint. We demonstrate this method on the types of data mentioned above, and show significant improvements in the quality of the reconstruction.