Atlas-Based Segmentation Pipelines on 3D Brain MR Images: A Preliminary Study

摘要

Three dimensional structural MR imaging is a high-resolution imaging technique used in thedetection and follow up of neurological disorders. Rigid changes in the brain are usually interpreted andreported manually by radiologists using MR images. The results of manual interpretation may vary withrespect to the experts. At the same time, measurement and segmentation of the brain regions and themanual evaluation of the volume changes are a difficult process. With the increase of numericalmethods, automated and semi-automated package programs have been developed for the analysis ofbrain measurements. These programs use electronic brain atlases or tissue probability maps. However,since the package programs have a lot of analysis time and give only certain outputs, they may bedisadvantaged in the use of segmentation and measurement of brain regions. Hence, special pipelinesare needed especially to obtain valuable features for artificial intelligence and classification studies. Inthis study, we propose pipelines to segment 3D certain brain regions, which will help to find the basicfeatures such as volume changes, intensity variations, symmetry deteriorations, and tissue changes. Withthese pipelines, 3D segmentation of the brain regions defined in the atlas can be performed andnormalized. It is aimed to use these studies as a preliminary study in order to quantitatively determinethe basic changes in the brain by performing the volume of interest methods and to formulate a decisionsupport system.