Brain Surface Segmentation of Magnetic Resonance Images of the Fetus

In this work we present a method for the image analysis of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of fetuses. Our goal is to segment the brain surface from multiple volumes (axial, coronal and sagittal acquisitions) of a fetus. To this end we propose a two-step approach: first, a Finite Gaussian Mixture Model (FGMM) will segment the image into 3 classes: brain, non-brain and mixture voxels. Second, a Markov Random Field scheme will be applied to re-distribute mixture voxels into either brain or non-brain tissue. Our main contributions are an adapted energy computation and an extended neighborhood from multiple volumes in the MRF step. Preliminary results on four fetuses of different gestational ages will be shown.

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Related concepts (5)

Magnetic resonance imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves to generate images of the organs in the body. MRI does not involve X-rays or the use of ionizing radiation, which distinguishes it from computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans.

Image segmentation

In and computer vision, image segmentation is the process of partitioning a into multiple image segments, also known as image regions or image objects (sets of pixels). The goal of segmentation is to simplify and/or change the representation of an image into something that is more meaningful and easier to analyze. Image segmentation is typically used to locate objects and boundaries (lines, curves, etc.) in images. More precisely, image segmentation is the process of assigning a label to every pixel in an image such that pixels with the same label share certain characteristics.

Brain

A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a vertebrate's body. In a human, the cerebral cortex contains approximately 14–16 billion neurons, and the estimated number of neurons in the cerebellum is 55–70 billion. Each neuron is connected by synapses to several thousand other neurons.