Structure Prior Effects in Bayesian Approaches of Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping

Figure 3

Structure regularization effects on a patient with hemorrhages in group 2. (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). Similar to healthy subject images, the structure consistency reduces overall streaking artifacts comparing QSM methods with and without it. The streaking artifacts were seen originating from vessels (black arrows) and the hemorrhage (hollow arrow heads) in GL2 and MGL in (c). This artifact was reduced to some extent in TV and MTV and even further in GL1 and MEDI. The averaging image quality scores of this patient were 1, 2, 2, 3.3, 3.3, and 4 for GL2, MGL2, TV, MTV, GL1, and MEDI, respectively.