Super Resolution MRI via Upscaling Diffusion Bridges

Abstract

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a powerful medical imaging modality that provides high-resolution anatomical information about tissues. However, the intrinsic trade-off between acquisition time and image quality poses challenges in obtaining high-resolution images within a clinically feasible timeframe. This study introduces a novel approach to acquire high-resolution images in short scan times based on Super-Resolution Diffusion Bridges (SRDB). The proposed method leverages advanced machine learning techniques based on diffusion models to upscale MR images. While standard diffusion models learn a mapping from Gaussian distributed noise images to target images, SRDB instead learns a mapping from low-resolution MR images to high-resolution images. Unlike the task-independent learning in standard diffusion model, SRDB thus performs task-based learning to improve structural consistency and better preservation of anatomical features. In this way, the trained models help capture fine details that may be missed in standard low-resolution MRI acquisitions.

Publication
32nd Signal Processing and Communications Applications Conference (SIU), Mersin, Türkiye
Usama Mirza
Usama Mirza
Ph.D. Student in Electrical and Electronics Engineering

My research focuses on generative models (diffusion models, GANs) for computational imaging, particularly accelerated MRI reconstruction and multi-contrast MRI synthesis.