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A Study of Demographic Bias in CNN-Based Brain MR Segmentation

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Machine Learning in Clinical Neuroimaging (MLCN 2022)

Abstract

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are increasingly being used to automate the segmentation of brain structures in magnetic resonance (MR) images for research studies. In other applications, CNN models have been shown to exhibit bias against certain demographic groups when they are under-represented in the training sets. In this work, we investigate whether CNN models for brain MR segmentation have the potential to contain sex or race bias when trained with imbalanced training sets. We train multiple instances of the FastSurferCNN model using different levels of sex imbalance in white subjects. We evaluate the performance of these models separately for white male and white female test sets to assess sex bias, and furthermore evaluate them on black male and black female test sets to assess potential racial bias. We find significant sex and race bias effects in segmentation model performance. The biases have a strong spatial component, with some brain regions exhibiting much stronger bias than others. Overall, our results suggest that race bias is more significant than sex bias. Our study demonstrates the importance of considering race and sex balance when forming training sets for CNN-based brain MR segmentation, to avoid maintaining or even exacerbating existing health inequalities through biased research study findings.

Data used in preparation of this article were obtained from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database (adni.loni.usc.edu). As such, the investigators within the ADNI contributed to the design and implementation of ADNI and/or provided data but did not participate in analysis or writing of this report. A complete listing of ADNI investigators can be found at: http://adni.loni.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/how_to_apply/ADNI_Acknowledgement_List.pdf.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A protected group is a set of samples which all share the same value of the protected attribute. A protected attribute is one where fairness needs to be guaranteed, e.g. race and sex.

  2. 2.

    www.adni-info.org.

  3. 3.

    We used the segmentations available at https://doi.gin.g-node.org/10.12751/g-node.aa605a/.

  4. 4.

    When assessing differences for multiple regions we did not apply correction for multiple tests because our aim was to be sensitive to possible bias rather than minimise Type I errors.

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Ioannou, S., Chockler, H., Hammers, A., King, A.P., for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. (2022). A Study of Demographic Bias in CNN-Based Brain MR Segmentation. In: Abdulkadir, A., et al. Machine Learning in Clinical Neuroimaging. MLCN 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13596. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17899-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17899-3_2

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