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A Cooperative Approach Based on Local Detection of Similarities and Discontinuities for Brain MR Images Segmentation

  • Image & Signal Processing
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Journal of Medical Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper introduces a new cooperative multi-agent approach for segmenting brain Magnetic Resonance Images (MRIs). MRIs are manually processed by human radiology experts for the identification of many diseases and the monitoring of their evolution. However, such a task is time-consuming and depends on expert decision, which can be affected by many factors. Therefore, various types of research were and are still conducted to automate MRI processing, mainly MRI segmentation. The approach presented in this paper, without any parametrization or prior knowledge, uses a set of situated agents, locally interacting to segment images according to two main phases: the detection of discontinuities and the detection of similarities. An implementation of this approach was tested on phantom brain MR images to assess the results and prove its efficiency. Experimental results ensure a minimum of 89% Dice coefficient with increasing values of the noise and the intensity non-uniformity.

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Funding

This research was carried out as part of a Ph.D thesis. No specific funding was involved.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LIMOSE Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, University of M’hamed Bougara of Boumerdes, Avenue de l’indépendance, 35000, Boumerdes, Algeria

    Mohamed T. Bennai & Mohamed Mezghiche

  2. CReSTIC EA 3804, Université de Reims Champagne Ardenne, Reims, France

    Mohamed T. Bennai, Zahia Guessoum & Stéphane Cormier

  3. Department of Computer Science, University 20 Août 1955, Skikda, Algeria

    Smaine Mazouzi

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  1. Mohamed T. Bennai
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  2. Smaine Mazouzi
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  3. Zahia Guessoum
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  4. Mohamed Mezghiche
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  5. Stéphane Cormier
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Correspondence to Mohamed T. Bennai.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Healthcare Intelligent Multi-Agent Systems (HIMAS2020)

Guest Editors: Neil Vaughan, Sara Montagna, Stefano Mariani, Eloisa Vargiu and Michael I. Schumacher

We would like to grant the Algerian General Directorate for Scientific Research and Technological Development our thanks for funding our future research.

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Bennai, M.T., Mazouzi, S., Guessoum, Z. et al. A Cooperative Approach Based on Local Detection of Similarities and Discontinuities for Brain MR Images Segmentation. J Med Syst 44, 145 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-020-01610-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-020-01610-w

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