Introduction of Sample Based Prior into the D-Bar Method Through a Schur Complement Property

IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2020 Dec;39(12):4085-4093. doi: 10.1109/TMI.2020.3012428. Epub 2020 Nov 30.

Abstract

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a non-invasive medical imaging technique in which images of the conductivity in a region of interest in the body are computed from measurements of voltages on electrodes arising from low-frequency, low-amplitude applied currents. Mathematically, the inverse conductivity problem is nonlinear and ill-posed, and the reconstructions have characteristically low spatial resolution. One approach to improve the spatial resolution of EIT images is to include anatomically and physiologically-based prior information in the reconstruction algorithm. Statistical inversion theory provides a means of including prior information from a representative sample population. In this paper, a method is proposed to introduce statistical prior information into the D-bar method based on Schur complement properties. The method presents an improvement of the image obtained by the D-bar method by maximizing the conditional probability density function of an image that is consistent with a prior information and the model, given a D-bar image computed from the voltage measurements. Experimental phantoms show an improved spatial resolution by the use of the proposed method for the D-bar image reconstructions.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Electric Impedance
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Phantoms, Imaging*
  • Tomography*