title: Fuzzy local Gaussian mixture model for brain MR image segmentation.
abstract: Accurate brain tissue segmentation from magnetic resonance (MR) images is an essential step in quantitative brain image analysis. However, due to the existence of noise and intensity inhomogeneity in brain MR images, many segmentation algorithms suffer from limited accuracy. In this paper, we assume that the local image data within each voxel's neighborhood satisfy the Gaussian mixture model (GMM), and thus propose the fuzzy local GMM (FLGMM) algorithm for automated brain MR image segmentation. This algorithm estimates the segmentation result that maximizes the posterior probability by minimizing an objective energy function, in which a truncated Gaussian kernel function is used to impose the spatial constraint and fuzzy memberships are employed to balance the contribution of each GMM. We compared our algorithm to state-of-the-art segmentation approaches in both synthetic and clinical data. Our results show that the proposed algorithm can largely overcome the difficulties raised by noise, low contrast, and bias field, and substantially improve the accuracy of brain MR image segmentation.
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. jizexuan@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Zexuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ji
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Quansen
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Deshen
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: David Dagan
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Feng
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D017143:Fuzzy Logic; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D016011:Normal Distribution