Brain Image Segmentation in Recent Years: A Narrative Review

Brain image segmentation is one of the most time-consuming and challenging procedures in a clinical environment. Recently, a drastic increase in the number of brain disorders has been noted. This has indirectly led to an increased demand for automated brain segmentation solutions to assist medical experts in early diagnosis and treatment interventions. This paper aims to present a critical review of the recent trend in segmentation and classification methods for brain magnetic resonance images. Various segmentation methods ranging from simple intensity-based to high-level segmentation approaches such as machine learning, metaheuristic, deep learning, and hybridization are included in the present review. Common issues, advantages, and disadvantages of brain image segmentation methods are also discussed to provide a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of existing methods. From this review, it is found that deep learning-based and hybrid-based metaheuristic approaches are more efficient for the reliable segmentation of brain tumors. However, these methods fall behind in terms of computation and memory complexity.

An Automatic Magnetic Resonance Brain Image Segmentation Method Using a Multitask Weighted Fuzzy Clustering Algorithm

In clinical assisted diagnosis, it is an important way to obtain information with the help of medical images. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of brain tissue has become a research hotspot for brain diseases. Therefore, image segmentation technology is an indispensable link in medical image analysis. Due to the defects such as ambiguity, complexity, gray-scale unevenness, partial volume effect in magnetic resonance brain images, it is essential to improve the segmentation performance of classical algorithms in medical images. In this paper, multitasking and weighted fuzzy clustering algorithm are combined as a new algorithm (MT-WFCM) for MRI brain image segmentation. The proposed MT-WFCM algorithm improve the clustering performance of all tasks through common information between different magnetic resonance brain images with correlation. Besides, the difference between MT-WFCM and MT-FCM is that task weights are added to avoid negative effects between tasks in the segmentation process. According to five different comparative experiments, the MT-WFCM algorithm can mine the cooperative relationship among each task and the characteristics of each task effectively. In magnetic resonance image (MRI) segmentation, multi-task weighted fuzzy c-means clustering method can make up for the shortcomings of single-task clustering algorithm, strengthen the relationship between tasks, and get more accurate segmentation results.

An Automatic MR Brain Image Segmentation Method Using a Multitask Quadratic Regularized Clustering Algorithm

In the diagnosis of clinical medicine, medical image processing plays a vital role and has become a hot issue in image processing. Magnetic resonance imaging not only provides convenience for treatment, but also brings help to the rehabilitation of patients. However, there are some unfavorable factors in MRI brain images, such as blurred boundary data, weak anti-noise ability, and so on. The classical fuzzy clustering algorithm has strong advantages, but the improved method is relatively simple, only adjusting the degree of membership or changing the distance algorithm to enhance the clustering effect. Therefore, this paper proposes a new multitask quadratic regularized clustering (MT-QRC) algorithm for MRI brain image segmentation, which improves the single-task clustering performance by transferring relevant knowledge between tasks. The proposed MT-QRC algorithm introduces the spatial information item controlled by the quadratic regularization term to replace the fuzzy index, which reduces the limitation of the fuzzy index in clustering and enhances the parameter flexibility.

MR Brain Image Segmentation Using a Fuzzy Weighted Multiview Possibility Clustering Algorithm with Low-Rank Constraints

To expand the multiview clustering abilities of traditional PCM in increasingly complex MR brain image segmentation tasks, a fuzzy weighted multiview possibility clustering algorithm with low-rank constraints (LR-FW-MVPCM) is proposed. The LR-FW-MVPCM can effectively mine both the internal consistency and diversity of multiview data, which are two principles for constructing a multiview clustering algorithm. First, a kernel norm is introduced as a low-rank constraint of the fuzzy membership matrix among multiple perspectives. Second, to ensure the clustering accuracy of the algorithm, the view fuzzy weighted mechanism is introduced to the framework of possibility c-means clustering, and the weights of each view are adaptively allocated during the iterative optimization process. The segmentation results of different brain tissues based on the proposed algorithm and three other algorithms illustrate that the LR-FW-MVPCM algorithm can segment MR brain images much more effectively and ensure better segmentation performance.