Analytical assessment of intelligent segmentation techniques for cortical tissues of MR brain images: a comparative study

Medical image segmentation is one of the difficult tasks in image processing since the accuracy of segmentation determines the eventual success or failure of proper diagnosis. In medical imaging identification of each pixel in a region has vital importance since it can increase the standard of evaluation criteria. In this respect segmentation of brain MR images has become more significant in research and medical applications related to diagnosis of abnormality and diseases appearing in human brain. Segmentation initiates the process of extraction of various cortical tissues which is a key issue in neuroscience, to detect early neural disorders. The aim of present study is to comprehensively evaluate intensity based fuzzy C-means and Markov random field approaches, both stochastic and deterministic, for the segmentation of brain MR images into three different cortical tissues-gray matter, white matter and cerebrospinal fluid. Along with the analytical assessment of the segmentation techniques including efficiency and user interaction, this work is concentrated on empirical evaluation based on area based matrix. The results illustrate that in all respects, Markov Random field based approaches are showing better performance as compared to fuzzy C-means. Further, the Markov random field approaches are compared to find out which segmentation technique will suit which initial conditions.