title: MRI segmentation of the human brain: challenges, methods, and applications.
abstract: Image segmentation is one of the most important tasks in medical image analysis and is often the first and the most critical step in many clinical applications. In brain MRI analysis, image segmentation is commonly used for measuring and visualizing the brain's anatomical structures, for analyzing brain changes, for delineating pathological regions, and for surgical planning and image-guided interventions. In the last few decades, various segmentation techniques of different accuracy and degree of complexity have been developed and reported in the literature. In this paper we review the most popular methods commonly used for brain MRI segmentation. We highlight differences between them and discuss their capabilities, advantages, and limitations. To address the complexity and challenges of the brain MRI segmentation problem, we first introduce the basic concepts of image segmentation. Then, we explain different MRI preprocessing steps including image registration, bias field correction, and removal of nonbrain tissue. Finally, after reviewing different brain MRI segmentation methods, we discuss the validation problem in brain MRI segmentation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Telecommunications and Information Processing TELIN-IPI-iMinds, Ghent University, St-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ivana
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Despotović
authors.affiliation: Department of Telecommunications and Information Processing TELIN-IPI-iMinds, Ghent University, St-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Bart
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-4942-132X
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Goossens
authors.affiliation: Department of Telecommunications and Information Processing TELIN-IPI-iMinds, Ghent University, St-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Wilfried
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4456-4353
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Philips
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D016011:Normal Distribution; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software