Fetal MRI: motion correction, advanced modalities and clinical applications

Fetal MRI enables visualisation of developing fetal brain and organs, and it is increasingly used in both research and clinical practice. However, fetal motion and maternal breathing present challenges for acquisition and processing of fetal MRI data, which cannot be addressed by standard tools for adult or neonatal populations. This talk will describe dedicated correction techniques specifically suited for reconstructing artefact-free fetal MRI, including structural and diffusion imaging of the brain, and imaging of moving fetal heart.

First, we will introduce the key concepts of correction of rigid and deformable motion, and super-resolution reconstruction of fetal structural MRI. Next, registration-based distortion correction will be introduced to correct geometric distortion present in echo-planar imaging used for acquisition of diffusion data, and super-resolution technique will be extended to reconstruct high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) of fetal brain. Finally, we will describe motion correction and super-resolution reconstruction technique to reconstruct images of moving fetal heart. For each of these modalities we will showcase example clinical applications and preliminary findings.