title: Texture-based segmentation of diffuse lesions of the brain's white matter.
abstract: Diffuse lesions of the white matter of the human brain are common pathological findings in magnetic resonance images of elderly subjects. These lesions are typically caused by small vessel diseases (e.g., due to hypertension, diabetes), and related to cognitive decline. Because these lesions are inhomogeneous, unsharp, and faint, but show an intensity pattern that is different from the adjacent healthy tissue, a segmentation based on texture properties is proposed here. This method was successfully applied to a set of 116 image data sets of elderly subjects. Quantitative measures for the lesion load are derived that compare well with results from experts that visually rated lesions on a semiquantitative scale. Texture-based segmentation can be considered as a general method for lesion segmentation, and an outline for adapting this method to similar problems is presented.
authors.affiliation: 204 Rockwell Engineering Center, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2755, USA. fkruggel@uci.edu
authors.forename: Frithjof
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kruggel
authors.forename: Joseph Suresh
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Paul
authors.forename: Hermann-Josef
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Gertz
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000465:Algorithms; D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000473:pathology; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging