Youyong Kong1, Jiasong Wu2, Guanyu Yang2, Yulin Zuo2, Yang Chen2, Huazhong Shu2, Jean Louis Coatrieux3. 1. School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China; Centre de Recherche en Information BioMdicale Sino-franais (CRIBs), Nanjing, China. Electronic address: kongyouyong@seu.edu.cn. 2. School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China; Centre de Recherche en Information BioMdicale Sino-franais (CRIBs), Nanjing, China. 3. School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China; LTSI, Universit de Rennes 1, Rennes, F-35042, France; Centre de Recherche en Information BioMdicale Sino-franais (CRIBs), Rennes, F-35000, France.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Although supervoxel segmentation methods have been employed for brain Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) processing and analysis, due to the specific features of the brain, including complex-shaped internal structures and partial volume effect, their performance remains unsatisfactory. NEW METHODS: To address these issues, this paper presents a novel iterative spatial fuzzy clustering (ISFC) algorithm to generate 3D supervoxels for brain MRI volume based on prior knowledge. This work makes use of the common topology among the human brains to obtain a set of seed templates from a population-based brain template MRI image. After selecting the number of supervoxels, the corresponding seed template is projected onto the considered individual brain for generating reliable seeds. Then, to deal with the influence of partial volume effect, an efficient iterative spatial fuzzy clustering algorithm is proposed to allocate voxels to the seeds and to generate the supervoxels for the overall brain MRI volume. RESULTS: The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on two widely used public brain MRI datasets and compared with three other up-to-date methods. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed algorithm can be utilized for several brain MRI processing and analysis, including tissue segmentation, tumor detection and segmentation, functional parcellation and registration.
BACKGROUND: Although supervoxel segmentation methods have been employed for brain Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) processing and analysis, due to the specific features of the brain, including complex-shaped internal structures and partial volume effect, their performance remains unsatisfactory. NEW METHODS: To address these issues, this paper presents a novel iterative spatial fuzzy clustering (ISFC) algorithm to generate 3D supervoxels for brain MRI volume based on prior knowledge. This work makes use of the common topology among the human brains to obtain a set of seed templates from a population-based brain template MRI image. After selecting the number of supervoxels, the corresponding seed template is projected onto the considered individual brain for generating reliable seeds. Then, to deal with the influence of partial volume effect, an efficient iterative spatial fuzzy clustering algorithm is proposed to allocate voxels to the seeds and to generate the supervoxels for the overall brain MRI volume. RESULTS: The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on two widely used public brain MRI datasets and compared with three other up-to-date methods. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed algorithm can be utilized for several brain MRI processing and analysis, including tissue segmentation, tumor detection and segmentation, functional parcellation and registration.