BM4D-PC: nonlocal volumetric denoising of principal components of diffusion-weighted MR images

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Main Authors: Campos, Vinicius P., Szczupak, Diego, Santini, Tales, Silva, Afonso C., Foi, Alessandro, Vieira, Marcelo A. C., Baron, Corey A.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Campos, Vinicius P.
Szczupak, Diego
Santini, Tales
Silva, Afonso C.
Foi, Alessandro
Vieira, Marcelo A. C.
Baron, Corey A.
author_facet Campos, Vinicius P.
Szczupak, Diego
Santini, Tales
Silva, Afonso C.
Foi, Alessandro
Vieira, Marcelo A. C.
Baron, Corey A.
contents Purpose: Noise in diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) is often spatially correlated due to different acquisition and reconstruction strategies, which is not fully accounted for in current denoising strategies. Thus, we propose a novel model-based denoising method for dMRI that effectively accounts for the different noise characteristics of data. Methods: We propose a denoising strategy that incorporates full noise statistics, including the noise power spectral density (PSD), by leveraging the BM4D algorithm. Furthermore, to exploit redundancy across the diffusion MRI dataset, BM4D is applied to principal components (PC) of diffusion-weighted images (DWI) obtained through principal component analysis (PCA) decomposition of the entire DWI dataset, an approach we refer to as BM4D-PC. Importantly, our method also allows for direct estimation of both the noise map and PSD. We evaluated BM4D-PC against four existing state-of-the-art methods using in-silico and in vivo datasets, including high-resolution human and marmoset acquisitions. Results: Overall, BM4D-PC presented the best results for the metrics PSNR, SSIM and RMSE on the in-silico experiments. The in-vivo studies also showed that BM4D-PC dramatically enhanced the image quality of raw DWIs, outperforming existing denoising methods in terms of noise suppression and detail preservation, leading to improved quality of diffusion metrics. Conclusion: The proposed BM4D-PC method demonstrated state-of-the-art denoising results for dMRI using datasets from various acquisition strategies and image resolutions, potentially supporting future advances in neuroscience research.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_17138
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle BM4D-PC: nonlocal volumetric denoising of principal components of diffusion-weighted MR images
Campos, Vinicius P.
Szczupak, Diego
Santini, Tales
Silva, Afonso C.
Foi, Alessandro
Vieira, Marcelo A. C.
Baron, Corey A.
Signal Processing
Purpose: Noise in diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) is often spatially correlated due to different acquisition and reconstruction strategies, which is not fully accounted for in current denoising strategies. Thus, we propose a novel model-based denoising method for dMRI that effectively accounts for the different noise characteristics of data. Methods: We propose a denoising strategy that incorporates full noise statistics, including the noise power spectral density (PSD), by leveraging the BM4D algorithm. Furthermore, to exploit redundancy across the diffusion MRI dataset, BM4D is applied to principal components (PC) of diffusion-weighted images (DWI) obtained through principal component analysis (PCA) decomposition of the entire DWI dataset, an approach we refer to as BM4D-PC. Importantly, our method also allows for direct estimation of both the noise map and PSD. We evaluated BM4D-PC against four existing state-of-the-art methods using in-silico and in vivo datasets, including high-resolution human and marmoset acquisitions. Results: Overall, BM4D-PC presented the best results for the metrics PSNR, SSIM and RMSE on the in-silico experiments. The in-vivo studies also showed that BM4D-PC dramatically enhanced the image quality of raw DWIs, outperforming existing denoising methods in terms of noise suppression and detail preservation, leading to improved quality of diffusion metrics. Conclusion: The proposed BM4D-PC method demonstrated state-of-the-art denoising results for dMRI using datasets from various acquisition strategies and image resolutions, potentially supporting future advances in neuroscience research.
title BM4D-PC: nonlocal volumetric denoising of principal components of diffusion-weighted MR images
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.17138