title: LONGITUDINAL INTENSITY NORMALIZATION IN THE PRESENCE OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS LESIONS.
abstract: This paper proposes a longitudinal intensity normalization algorithm forT1-weighted magnetic resonance images of human brains in the presence of multiple sclerosis lesions, aiming towards stable and consistent longitudinal segmentations. Unlike previous longitudinal segmentation methods, we propose a 4D intensity normalization that can be used as a preprocessing step to any segmentation method. The variability in intensities arising from the relapsing and remitting nature of the multiple sclerosis lesions is modeled into an otherwise smooth intensity transform based on first order autoregressive models, resulting in smooth changes in segmentation statistics of normal tissues, while keeping the lesion information unaffected. We validated our method on both simulated and real longitudinal normal subjects and on multiple sclerosis subjects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University.
authors.forename: Snehashis
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Roy
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University.
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Carass
authors.affiliation: CNRM, The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.
authors.forename: Navid
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shiee
authors.affiliation: CNRM, The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.
authors.forename: Dzung L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Pham
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, The Johns Hopkins Hospital.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Calabresi
authors.affiliation: Translational Neuroradiology Unit, NINDS, NIH.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Reich
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University.
authors.forename: Jerry L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Prince
keywords: MRI; brain; intensity normalization; intensity standardization; segmentation