Segmentation of brain magnetic resonance images using a novel fuzzy clustering based method

Abstract

Segmentation of tissues in brain magnetic resonance (MR) images has a crucial role in computer‐aided diagnosis (CAD) of various brain diseases. However, due to the complex anatomical structure and the presence of intensity non‐uniformity (INU) artefact, the segmentation of brain MR images is considered as a complicated task. In this study, the authors propose a novel locally influenced fuzzy C‐means (LIFCM) clustering for segmentation of tissues in MR brain images. The proposed method incorporates local information in the clustering process to achieve accurate labelling of pixels. A novel local influence factor is proposed, which estimates the influence of a neighbouring pixel on the centre pixel. Furthermore, they have introduced the kernel‐induced distance in LIFCM, which deals with complex brain MR data and produces effective segmentation. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, they have used one simulated and one real MRI data set. Extensive experimental findings suggest that the authors' method not only produces effective segmentation but also retains crucial image details. The statistical significance test has been further conducted to support their experimental observations.

Keywords

• brain magnetic resonance images
• computer‐aided diagnosis
• brain diseases
• brain MR images
• LIFCM
• MR brain images