MP-PCA image denoising technique for high resolution quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) of the human brain in vivo

Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) has many clinical applications such as distinguishing between acute and chronic multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, and probing microbleeds in traumatic brain injury. High scan resolutions improve diagnostic quality and reduce partial volume artifacts albeit at a price of a lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this study, we introduce a principal component analysis (PCA) denoising algorithm for QSM data, showing the ability to generate QSM maps of the human brain at 0.6x0.6x0.6 mm3 resolution at 3T in vivo.