Structure Prior Effects in Bayesian Approaches of Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping

Figure 2

Structure regularization effects on a healthy subject in group 1. (a) magnitude, local field, and (b) reconstructed QSM images without (left) or with structure prior (right) in a sagittal section. The dashed boxes in (b) are zoomed in on (c). The structure consistency reduces overall streaking artifacts comparing QSM methods with and without it. The streaking artifacts were seen originating from vessels (black arrows) in GL2 and MGL2 in (c). This artifact was reduced to some extent in TV and MTV and even further in GL1 and MEDI. The appearance of small veins (dot boxes in (c)) is also improved in the method with compared to the method without it, respectively. The averaging image quality scores of this subject were 1, 2, 2.7, 3.3, 3.7, and 5 for GL2, MGL2, TV, MTV, GL1, and MEDI, respectively.