High Resolution fMRI Data De-noising Technique Using Spatio-Temporal Diffusion Filter

Diffusion-based filtering approaches are widely used in MR image de-noising literature but only a few studies, utilize this technique for fMRI applications. In these studies, 1D & 2D diffusion filters were applied using temporal and spatial information separately. Here, a novel spatio-temporal diffusion filtering method is proposed for high-spatial resolution fMRI data which has sufficient contrast between gray matter and other tissues. The results on the experimental SSFP data shows the ability of the proposed technique in improving functional sensitivity as well as preserving the edges of active regions in high-resolution fMRI techniques.