Accurate 3D Left-Right Brain Hemisphere Segmentation in MR Images Based on Shape Bottlenecks and Partial Volume Estimation

Current automatic methods based on mid-sagittal plane to segment left and right human brain hemispheres in 3D magnetic resonance (MR) images simply use a planar surface. However, the two brain hemispheres, in fact, can not be separated by just a simple plane properly. A novel automatic method to segment left and right brain hemispheres in MR images is proposed in this paper, which is based on an extended shape bottlenecks algorithm and a fast and robust partial volume estimation approach. In this method, brain tissues firstly are extracted from the MR image of human head. Then the information potential map is generated, according to which a brain hemisphere mask with the same size of the original image is created. 10 simulated and 5 real T1-weighted MR images were used to evaluate this method, and much more accurate segmentation of human brain hemispheres was achieved comparing with the segmentation with mid-sagittal plane.

[1]  M E Brummer,et al.  Hough transform detection of the longitudinal fissure in tomographic head images. , 1991, IEEE transactions on medical imaging.

[2]  Yanxi Liu,et al.  Robust midsagittal plane extraction from normal and pathological 3-D neuroradiology images , 2001, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[3]  Andrew Zisserman,et al.  Visualising Cerebral Asymmetry , 1996, VBC.

[4]  V. Frouin,et al.  Shape bottlenecks and conservative flow systems [medical image analysis] , 1996, Proceedings of the Workshop on Mathematical Methods in Biomedical Image Analysis.

[5]  David G. Stork,et al.  Pattern Classification (2nd ed.) , 1999 .

[6]  Jean Régis,et al.  Shape Bottlenecks and Conservative Flow Systems , 1996 .

[7]  Richard A. Robb,et al.  Visualization in biomedical computing , 1999, Parallel Comput..

[8]  Frithjof Kruggel,et al.  Alignment of magnetic-resonance brain datasets with the stereotactical coordinate system , 1999, Medical Image Anal..

[9]  Computer-Assisted Intervention,et al.  Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention – MICCAI’99 , 1999, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[10]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  MRI Simulation Based Evaluation and Classifications Methods , 1999, IEEE Trans. Medical Imaging.

[11]  N. Tzourio-Mazoyer,et al.  Automated Anatomical Labeling of Activations in SPM Using a Macroscopic Anatomical Parcellation of the MNI MRI Single-Subject Brain , 2002, NeuroImage.

[12]  Yanxi Liu,et al.  Automatic bilateral symmetry (midsagittal) plane extraction from pathological 3D neuroradiological images , 1998, Medical Imaging.

[13]  Frithjof Kruggel,et al.  Gender and age effects in structural brain asymmetry as measured by MRI texture analysis , 2003, NeuroImage.

[14]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Fast and robust parameter estimation for statistical partial volume models in brain MRI , 2004, NeuroImage.

[15]  I. Johnsrude,et al.  The problem of functional localization in the human brain , 2002, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[16]  R. Leahy,et al.  Magnetic Resonance Image Tissue Classification Using a Partial Volume Model , 2001, NeuroImage.

[17]  T. J. Crow,et al.  Schizophrenia as an Anomaly of Cerebral Asymmetry , 1993 .

[18]  Sébastien Ourselin,et al.  Computation of the mid-sagittal plane in 3-D brain images , 2002, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[19]  Changming Sun,et al.  3D Symmetry Detection Using The Extended Gaussian Image , 1997, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[20]  N. Geschwind,et al.  Human Brain: Left-Right Asymmetries in Temporal Speech Region , 1968, Science.

[21]  D. Euvrard,et al.  Resolution numerique des equations aux derivees partielles , 1988 .

[22]  A. Toga,et al.  Mapping brain asymmetry , 2003, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[23]  Stephen M. Smith,et al.  Accurate Robust Symmetry Estimation , 1999, MICCAI.

[24]  Iwao Kanno,et al.  Automatic detection of the mid-sagittal plane in 3-D brain images , 1997, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[25]  Yanxi Liu,et al.  Robust Midsagittal Plane Extraction from Coarse, Pathological 3D Images , 2000, MICCAI.

[26]  David G. Stork,et al.  Pattern Classification , 1973 .

[27]  D. Louis Collins,et al.  Design and construction of a realistic digital brain phantom , 1998, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.