# MRI Cross-Modal Synthesis: A Comparative Study of Generative Models for T1-to-T2 Reconstruction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.07068 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.07068/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07004/) (2016)
- [fastMRI: An Open Dataset and Benchmarks for Accelerated MRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.08839/) (2018)
- [Image Synthesis in Multi-Contrast MRI with Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.01221/) (2018)
- [Medical Image Synthesis with Context-Aware Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.05362/) (2016)
- [Conditional Diffusion Models for Semantic 3D Brain MRI Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18453/) (2023)
- [Swin Transformer for Fast MRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03230/) (2022)
- [One Model to Synthesize Them All: Multi-contrast Multi-scale Transformer for Missing Data Imputation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.13738/) (2022)
- [Fast-DDPM: Fast Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models for Medical Image-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14802/) (2024)
- [SCott: Accelerating Diffusion Models with Stochastic Consistency Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.01505/) (2024)
- [MRI Scan Synthesis Methods based on Clustering and Pix2Pix](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05176/) (2023)
- [Learning Modality-Aware Representations: Adaptive Group-wise Interaction Network for Multimodal MRI Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14684/) (2024)
- [Score-based Generative Priors Guided Model-driven Network for MRI Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02958/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Models for conditional MRI generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18620/) (2025)
- [CNNs and GANs in MRI-based cross-modality medical image estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.02198/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Triple-Phase Sequential Fusion Network for Hepatobiliary Phase Liver MRI Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22904/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

MRI cross-modal synthesis involves generating images from one acquisition protocol using another, offering considerable clinical value by reducing scan time while maintaining diagnostic information. This paper presents a comprehensive comparison of three state-of-the-art generative models for T1-to-T2 MRI reconstruction: Pix2Pix GAN, CycleGAN, and Variational Autoencoder (VAE). Using the BraTS 2020 dataset (11,439 training and 2,000 testing slices), we evaluate these models based on established metrics including Mean Squared Error (MSE), Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM). Our experiments demonstrate that all models can successfully synthesize T2 images from T1 inputs, with CycleGAN achieving the highest PSNR (32.28 dB) and SSIM (0.9008), while Pix2Pix GAN provides the lowest MSE (0.005846). The VAE, though showing lower quantitative performance (MSE: 0.006949, PSNR: 24.95 dB, SSIM: 0.6573), offers advantages in latent space representation and sampling capabilities. This comparative study provides valuable insights for researchers and clinicians selecting appropriate generative models for MRI synthesis applications based on their specific requirements and data constraints.