Improved Low-Rank Filtering of MR Spectroscopic Imaging Data with Pre-Learnt Subspace and Spatial Constraints

Objective: To investigate the use of pre-learnt subspace and spatial constraints for denoising magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) data. Method: We exploit the partial separability or subspace structures of high-dimensional MRSI data for denoising. More specifically, we incorporate a subspace model with pre-learnt spectral basis into the low-rank approximation (LORA) method. Spectral basis is determined based on empirical prior distributions of the spectral parameters variations learnt from auxiliary training data; spatial priors are also incorporated as is done in LORA to further improve denoising performance. Results: The effects of the explicit subspace and spatial constraints in reducing estimation bias and variance have been analyzed using Cramér-Rao Lower bound analysis, Monte-Carlo study, and experimental study. Conclusion: The denoising effectiveness of LORA can be significantly improved by incorporating pre-learnt spectral basis and spatial priors into LORA. Significance: This study provides an effective method for denoising MRSI data along with comprehensive analyses of its performance. The proposed method is expected to be useful for a wide range of studies using MRSI.