Segmentation of the cortex in fetal MRI using a topological model

The study of in utero fetal MR images is essential for the diagnosis of abnormal brain development and the study of the maturation of the brain structures. Because of the particular properties of these images, only a few automated segmentation methods have been developed so far compared to the numerous ones existing for the adult brain anatomy. In this paper, we propose a two-step cortex segmentation technique including anatomical priors and a topological model. Experiments performed on in utero MR data and validation by comparison to experts segmentation emphasize the relevance of the method.