Optimal estimation of T2 maps from magnitude MR images

A Maximum Likelihood estimation technique is proposed for optimal estimation of Magnetic Resonance (MR) T2 maps from a set of magnitude MR images. Thereby, full use is made of the actual probability density function of the magnitude data, which is the Rician distribution. While equal in terms of precision, the proposed method is demonstrated to be superior in terms of accuracy compared to conventional relaxation parameter estimation techniques.