3D Motion Modeling and Reconstruction of Left Ventricle Wall in Cardiac MRI

The analysis of left ventricle (LV) wall motion is a critical step for understanding cardiac functioning mechanisms and clinical diagnosis of ventricular diseases. We present a novel approach for 3D motion modeling and analysis of LV wall in cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). First, a fully convolutional network (FCN) is deployed to initialize myocardium contours in 2D MR slices. Then, we propose an image registration algorithm to align MR slices in space and minimize the undesirable motion artifacts from inconsistent respiration. Finally, a 3D deformable model is applied to recover the shape and motion of myocardium wall. Utilizing the proposed approach, we can visually analyze 3D LV wall motion, evaluate cardiac global function, and diagnose ventricular diseases.