Huber function based reconstruction in accelerated phase-cycled bSSFP acquisitions for increased detection performance

Abstract

Balanced steady-state free precession imaging suffers from irrecoverable signal losses, called banding artifacts. A common way to alleviate banding artifacts without sacrificing scan-efficiency is to use multiple-acquisition methods that combine phase-cycled images. However, soft thresholding applications used during the recovery can reduce the detection performance and image quality. In this study, a reconstruction strategy that applies Huber function to increase detection sensitivity on small coefficients is evaluated. This strategy is compared with conventional methods in terms of peak signal to noise ratio and structural similarity index.