Self-navigated high-resolution 3D diffusion MRI using an extended blipped-CAIPI sampling and structured low-rank reconstruction

3D multi-shot multi-slab imaging can provide superior SNR efficiency for high-resolution dMRI but suffers from motion-induced shot-to-shot phase variations. We propose a highly-efficient, self-navigated method to correct for phase variations in 3D multi-slab dMRI. The sampling of each shot is designed to intersect with the kz=0 plane. These intersections are used to reconstruct a 2D phase map for each shot using a structured low-rank reconstruction that leverages the redundancy in shot and coil dimensions. The phase maps are used to eliminate the phase inconsistency in the final 3D multi-shot reconstruction. We demonstrate the method’s efficacy using highly realistic simulations.