Generalized Kohonen's competitive learning algorithms for ophthalmological MR image segmentation.

Kohonen's self-organizing map is a two-layer feedforward competitive learning network. It has been used as a competitive learning clustering algorithm. In this paper, we generalize Kohonen's competitive learning (KCL) algorithm with fuzzy and fuzzy-soft types called fuzzy KCL (FKCL) and fuzzy-soft KCL (FSKCL). These generalized KCL algorithms fuse the competitive learning with soft competition and fuzzy c-means (FCM) membership functions. We then apply these generalized KCLs to MRI and MRA ophthalmological segmentations. These KCL-based MRI segmentation techniques are useful in reducing medical image noise effects using a learning mechanism. They may be particularly helpful in clinical diagnosis. Two real cases with MR image data recommended by an ophthalmologist are examined. First case is a patient with Retinoblastoma in her left eye, an inborn malignant neoplasm of the retina frequently metastasis beyond the lacrimal cribrosa. The second case is a patient with complete left side oculomotor palsy immediately after a motor vehicle accident. Her brain MRI with MRA, skull routine, orbital CT, and cerebral angiography did not reveal brainstem lesions, skull fractures, or vascular anomalies. These generalized KCL algorithms were used in segmenting the ophthalmological MRIs. KCL, FKCL and FSKCL comparisons are made. Overall, the FSKCL algorithm is recommended for use in MR image segmentation as an aid to small lesion diagnosis.