Comparison of data-driven and physics-informed learning approaches for optimising multi-contrast MRI acquisition protocols

Multi-contrast MRI is used to assess the biological properties of tissues, but excessively long times are required to acquire high-quality datasets. To reduce acquisition time, physics-informed Machine Learning approaches were developed to select the optimal subset of measurements, decreasing the number of volumes by approximately 63%, and predict the MRI signal and quantitative maps. These selection methods were compared to a full data-driven and two manual strategies. Synthetic and real 5D-Diffusion-T1-T2* data from five healthy participants were used. Feature selection via a combination of Machine Learning and physics modelling provides accurate estimation of quantitative parameters and prediction of MRI signal.