SRNR: Deep learning-based MRI <b>S</b> uper- <b>R</b> esolution using <b>N</b> oisy high-resolution <b>R</b> eference data

Abstract

Deep learning-based super-resolution (SR) techniques offer a powerful tool to enhance the spatial resolution of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) without increasing scan time. However, most supervised SR methods rely on high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) reference data for training, which are difficult to acquire in many clinical settings, such as in time-constrained pediatric imaging. Inspired by the Noise2Noise principle, we propose SRNR, a new training paradigm that enables supervised SR using noisy high-resolution images as references. SRNR was systematically evaluated on both pediatric and adult simulated data across different noise levels of the reference data. SRNR generated super-resolved image volumes with high similarity to the high-resolution references (PSNR: 32.5–35.2 dB) and improved downstream image analysis performance, including tissue segmentation (white matter Dice coefficient: 0.951–0.960) and cortical surface reconstruction (cortical thickness absolute difference: 0.200–0.255 mm). Furthermore, SRNR was shown to be effective on clinically acquired pediatric brain MRI data, achieving improvements consistent with those observed in the simulated experiments. These results demonstrate that SRNR substantially reduces reliance on clean, high-SNR training data and enables effective SR under clinically realistic acquisition constraints, thereby improving the feasibility of deploying deep learning-based SR in pediatric MRI and related applications.