Generating Anatomically Accurate Finite Element Meshes for Electrical Impedance Tomography of the Human Head

摘要

For electrical impedance tomography (EIT) of brain, the use of anatomically accurate and patient-specific finite element (FE) mesh has been shown to confer significant improvements in the quality of image reconstruction. But, given the lack of a rapid method to achieve the accurate anatomic geometry of the head, the generation of patient-specifc mesh is time-comsuming. In this paper, a modified fuzzy c-means algorithm based on non-local means method is performed to implement the segmentation of different layers in the head based on head CT images. This algorithm showed a better effect, especially an accurate recognition of the ventricles and a suitable performance dealing with noise. And the FE mesh established according to the segmentation results is validated in computational simulation. So a rapid practicable method can be provided for the generation of patient-specific FE mesh of the human head that is suitable for brain EIT.