Noise cancelling of MRS signals combining model-based removal of powerline harmonics and multichannel Wiener filtering

The fidelity of magnetic resonance sounding signals is often severely degraded by noise, primarily electrical interference from powerline harmonics and short electromagnetic discharges. In many circumstances, the noise originates from multiple sources. We show that noise cancelling can be improved if the multiple origins of noise are taken into account. In particular, a method is developed where powerline harmonics are efficiently removed through a model-based approach. Subsequently, standard multichannel Wiener filtering can be used to provide a further noise reduction. The performance of the method depends on the distribution of noise on the particular site of measurement. Simulations on synthetic signals embedded in real noise recordings show that the combined approach can improve the signal-to-noise ratio with an accompanying improvement in retrieval of model parameters.