Isotropic anomalous filtering in Diffusion-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Noise is inherent to Diffusion-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DWI) and noise reduction methods are necessary. Although process based on classical diffusion is one of the most used approaches for digital image, anomalous diffusion has the potential for image enhancement and it has not been tested for DWI noise reduction. This study evaluates Anomalous Diffusion (AD) filter as DWI enhancement method. The proposed method was applied to magnetic resonance diffusion weighted images (DW-MRI) with different noise levels. Results show better performance for anomalous diffusion when compared to classical diffusion approach. The proposed method has shown potential in DWI enhancement and can be an important process to improve quality in DWI for neuroimage-based diagnosis.