Denoising of diffusion MRI in the cervical spinal cord – effects of denoising strategy and acquisition on intra-cord contrast, signal modeling, and feature conspicuity

•We extend use of three denoising algorithms to cervical spinal cord DTI data.•Marchenko-Pastur PCA and Patch2Self improve image quality for visual and quantitative interpretation.•CNR/SNR, DTI model fitting, and MS lesion conspicuity are improved.•Denoising could help DTI investigations into healthy and clinical populations.•Denoising can be performed with low-direction and high-direction diffusion data.