HARDI data denoising using vectorial total variation and logarithmic barrier (Q989223)

The aim of this paper is to denoise HARDI (High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging) data arising in medical brain imaging. Diffusion imaging is a relatively new and powerful method to measure the three-dimensional profile of water diffusions at each point of the brain. These images can be used to reconstruct fiber directions and pathways in the living brain, providing detailed maps of fiber integrity and connectivity. HARDI data is a powerful new extension of diffusion imaging, which goes beyond the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) model: mathematically, intensity data is given at every voxel and at any direction on the sphere. Unfortunately HARDI data is usually highly contaminated with noise, depending upon the b-value which is a tuning parameter preselected to collect the data. Larger b-values help to collect more accurate information in terms of measuring diffusivity, but more noise is generated by many factors as well. So large b-values are preferred if possible to reduce the noise without losing the data structure. This paper proposes two variational methods to denoise HARDI data. The first one directly denoises the collected data S, while the second one denoises the so-called sADC (spherical Apparent Diffusion Coeffficient), a field of radial functions derived from the data. These two quantities are related by an equation of the form \(S=S_{0}\exp(-b.sADC)\) (in the noise-free case). By applying these two different models, it is possible to determine which quantity will most accurately preserve the data structure after denoising. A theoretical analysis of the proposed models is presented, together with experimental results and comparisons for denoising synthetic and real HARDI data.