Dual Objective Approach Using A Convolutional Neural Network for Magnetic Resonance Elastography

Abstract: Traditionally, nonlinear inversion, direct inversion, or wave estimation methods have been used for reconstructing images from MRE displacement data. In this work, we propose a convolutional neural network architecture that can map MRE displacement data directly into elastograms, circumventing the costly and computationally intensive classical approaches. In addition to the mean squared error reconstruction objective, we also introduce a secondary loss inspired by the MRE mechanical models for training the neural network. Our network is demonstrated to be effective for generating MRE images that compare well with equivalents from the nonlinear inversion method.