Segmentation and feature extraction for magnetic resonance brain image analysis

A segmentation method developed for a system which analyzes magnetic resonance brain images is described. Consideration is also given to how the results of the segmentation method are used to successively identify the brain, suspected lesions, and the interhemispherical fissure, as well as to how these landmarks are used to determine automatically the orientation of a patient brain in 3-D. It is explained how all of the above are used in conjunction with a deformable 3-D model of the relevant brain anatomy to locate lesions in those images. The methods have been tested on more than 1000 images from 17 patients with multiple sclerosis: however, they can also be used in other radiologic tasks