Comparison of machine learning methods for the detection of focal cortical dysplasia lesions: decision tree, support vector machine and artificial neural network

Background Accurate classification of focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) has been challenging due to the problematic visual detection in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Hence, recently, there has been a necessity for employing new techniques to solve the problem. Among the new techniques for FCD lesion diagnosis, classification techniques can be of great help in FCD patient's detection from healthy individuals. Methods MRI data were collected from 58 participants (30 subjects with FCD type II and 28 normal subjects). Morphological and intensity-based characteristics were calculated for each cortical level and then the performance of the three classifiers: decision tree (DT), support vector machine (SVM) and artificial neural network (ANN) was evaluated. Results Metrics for evaluating classification methods, sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for the DT were 90%, 100% and 95.8%, respectively; it was 95%, 100% and 97.9% for the SVM and 96.7%, 100% and 98.6% for the ANN. Conclusion Comparison of the performance of the three classifications used in this study showed that all three have excellent performance in specificity, but in terms of classification sensitivity and accuracy, the artificial neural network method has worked better.