Detection Instead of Inversion: T1-T2 Microstructure Quantification With Detection Transformers

Abstract:T1-T2 correlation MRI has strong potential to quantify microstructural compartments without imposing a biological model. Traditionally, full T1-T2 spectra per voxel are reconstructed with an ill-conditioned and time-consuming Inverse Laplace Transform. We propose to view this challenge as an object detection task: A Detection Transformer (DETR) takes 64 TI/TE signals and directly predicts a set of compartments specified by T1, T2, and signal fraction. We achieve a mean average precision mAP@10 of 76.8% on simulated data, outperforming both our previous model design (53.8%) and regularized NNLS (66.1%). We show that our DETR approach outperforms NNLS in almost every setting across compartment count, compartmental signal fraction, and SNR. Reconstruction is orders of magnitude faster than NNLS. The results are fully reproducible from our public code: this http URL

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV); Machine Learning (cs.LG); Medical Physics (physics.med-ph)

arXiv:2611.01790 [cs.CV]

(or arXiv:2611.01790v1 [cs.CV] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2611.01790 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.