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Learning MRI artefact removal with unpaired data

Nature Machine Intelligence volume 3, pages 60–67 (2021)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 27 January 2021

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Abstract

Retrospective artefact correction (RAC) improves image quality post acquisition and enhances image usability. Recent machine-learning-driven techniques for RAC are predominantly based on supervised learning, so practical utility can be limited as data with paired artefact-free and artefact-corrupted images are typically insufficient or even non-existent. Here we show that unwanted image artefacts can be disentangled and removed from an image via an RAC neural network learned with unpaired data. This implies that our method does not require matching artefact-corrupted data to be either collected via acquisition or generated via simulation. Experimental results demonstrate that our method is remarkably effective in removing artefacts and retaining anatomical details in images with different contrasts.

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Fig. 1: Overview of DUNCAN.
Fig. 2: Visual comparison of corrected in vivo images.
Fig. 3: Visual comparison of corrected in silico images.
Fig. 4: Quantitative comparison of corrected in silico T1-weighted images.
Fig. 5: Quantitative comparison of corrected in silico T2-weighted images.
Fig. 6: Segmentation accuracy of in silico images.

Data availability

The data used in this paper were provided by the investigative team of the UNC/UMN Baby Connectome Project. The data can be obtained from the National Institute of Mental Health Data Archive (NDA) (http://nda.nih.gov/) or by contacting the investigative team23.

Code availability

The source code and trained models for this study are publicly available on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/3742351)34.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants (EB006733, AG053867, MH117943, MH104324, MH110274) and the efforts of the UNC/UMN Baby Connectome Project Consortium. The authors thank X. Zong of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for an initial discussion on motion artefact simulation and Y. Hong of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Y. Chen of Case Western Reserve University for proofreading the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology and Biomedical Research Imaging Center (BRIC), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Siyuan Liu, Kim-Han Thung, Liangqiong Qu, Weili Lin, Dinggang Shen & Pew-Thian Yap

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  1. Siyuan Liu
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  2. Kim-Han Thung
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  6. Pew-Thian Yap
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Contributions

S.L. designed the framework and network architecture, carried out the implementation, performed the experiments and analysed the data. S.L. and P.-T.Y. wrote the manuscript. S.L., K.-H.T. and P.-T.Y. revised the manuscript. L.Q. contributed to the initial formulation of the method before moving to Stanford University. W.L. provided the infant data for training and testing. P.-T.Y. conceived the study and were in charge of overall direction and planning. D.S. was involved in the initial discussion of the problem when he was with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All work was done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Correspondence to Pew-Thian Yap.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Machine Intelligence thanks Chuyang Ye and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Discussion and Supplementary Figs. 1–12.

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Liu, S., Thung, KH., Qu, L. et al. Learning MRI artefact removal with unpaired data. Nat Mach Intell 3, 60–67 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-020-00270-2

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