System and method for sparse image reconstruction

A method for sparse image reconstruction includes acquiring coil data from a magnetic resonance imaging device. The coil data includes undersampled k-space data corresponding to a subject. The method further includes processing the coil data using an image reconstruction technique to generate an initial undersampled image. The method also includes generating a reconstructed image based on the coil data, the initial undersampled image, and a plurality of iterative blocks of a flared network. A first iterative block of the flared network receives the initial undersampled image. Each of the plurality of iterative blocks includes a data consistency unit and a regularization unit and the iterative blocks are connected both by direct connections from one iterative block to the following iterative block and by a plurality of dense skip connections to non-adjacent iterative blocks. The flared network is based on a neural network trained using previously acquired coil data.