Automatic recognition of corpus callosum from sagittal brain MR images

We propose a new method to find the corpus callosum from sagittal brain MR images automatically. First, we calculate the statistical characteristics of the corpus callosum and obtain shape information. The recognition algorithm consists of two stages: extracting regions satisfying the statistical characteristics (gray level distribtuions) of the corpus callosum, and finding a region matching the shape information. An innovative feature of the algorithm is that we adaptively relax the statistical requirement until we find a region matching the shape information. In order to match the shape information, we propose a new directed window region growing algorithm instead of using conventional contour matching. Experiments show promising results.