ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010

Fully Automatic method to Identify Abnormal MRI Head Scans using

Fuzzy Segmentation and Fuzzy Symmetric Measure
K. Somasundaram and T.Kalaiselvi
Department of Computer Science and Applications,The Gandhigram Rural Institute – Deemed University,
Gandhigram – 624302, Tamilnadu, India.
[ka.somasundaram, kalaivpd]@gmail.com

Abstract
In this work we have proposed an automatic
method to analyze the MRI head scans and detect
abnormality in brain due to tumors. We make use of
the bilateral symmetry of the human brain. We use
T2 axial scans as they are highly sensitive to
pathological process. Tumors appear as hyper
intense in T2 scans and have intensity close to that
of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). For normal slices, CSF is
symmetrical about the vertical central line. So the
presence of abnormal tissues in the CSF class can be
detected by measuring the vertical symmetry of the
CSF image. Our method has four parts. First, the
brain is extracted from head using brain extraction
algorithm (BEA) and used to detect the boundary
between the cerebral hemispheres (CH). Next a slice
transformation has been done to align it with the
world space for bilateral symmetry checking. Then, a
fuzzy segmentation is done to generate a CSF
image. Finally a fuzzy symmetric measure (FSM) is
calculated for CSF image to discriminate between
normal and abnormal scans. Experiments using our
method were done on 20 volumes of normal and
abnormal datasets. Two measures, false alarm (FA)
and missed alarm (MA) were used to quantify the
performance of our method and found to be very
less, 3% and 6% respectively. These measures were
also used to compare our method with that of
existing methods. The mean FA is lower than the
existing methods. However the MA is higher, and is
due to the tumors present symmetrically about the
vertical central line.
Keywords: hyper intense, bilateral symmetry, brain
extraction, fuzzy segmentation, fuzzy symmetric
measure, false alarm, missed alarm.
1. Introduction
Imaging plays an important role in diagnosing of
brain tumors. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is
well suited for monitoring and evaluating cerebral
tumors. In MRI, they appear either as hypo-intense
(darker than brain tissues) or as iso-intense (same
intensity as brain tissue) in T1-weighted scans and
as hyper-intense (brighter than brain tissues) in T2-
weighted scans [1, 2]. The perifocal edema also
appears as hyper-intense in T2-weighted scans.
Since T2–weighted images are very sensitive in
detecting brain pathology, patients with suspected
intracranial disease should be first screened with
T2-weighted spin-echo and FLAIR images [3]. If an
abnormality is found then additional scans are
taken to characterize the lesion. As per the brain
screening protocol suggested by Hasselink [3], T1
images need to be taken only if T2 images show
abnormalities. Tumors appear as hyper-intense in
T2 scans and have intensity close to that of CSF. In
normal slices, the CSF is symmetric about the
vertical central line. Therefore, if any abnormal
tissue is present in the CSF, the symmetry is
disturbed. This can be detected by measuring the
symmetry of the CSF about the vertical central line
[1].
Several methods have been developed to automate
the brain tumor localization, analysis, segmentation
and visualization [1, 4-18]. Khotanlou et al., [4] and
Wang et al, [5] have given a summary of existing
methods and discussed their strengths and
weaknesses. Some of the methods are semi-
automatic and require user interaction either to
initiate or adjust the result [9-11]. Some methods
are atlas-based [14-16] and require predefined atlas.
Few methods require multi-channel images (T1, T2,

1
 ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010
PD and contrast enhanced images) [1, 17, 18] which
are not always available in clinical routine. Some
methods use symmetry property of brain tissues to
segment the tumor [4, 5, 12]. Some methods use
features like edges, gray values and local contrast of
pixels within a block for identifying tumorous
characteristics [6-8, 13]. The block-based analysis is
a time consuming process for a decision support
system.
Generally, most tumor segmentation methods have
two stages. Stage one is initialization that roughly
locate the tumor and the second stage refine the
rough result and produce the whole tumor.
Khotanlou et al., [4] proposed a 3D method for T1
images. They use two alternate approaches to
detect the initial position of the tumor in stage-1.
The first one is a fuzzy classification method that
classifies the brain into 5 classes, CSF, WM, GM,
tumor and background. Then a sequence of
morphological operations is performed to classify
the tumor from the tumor class. The second
approach is based on symmetry analysis of gray
level histograms of normal hemisphere and
pathological hemisphere. In their method a user
interaction is required to select the pathological
hemisphere. The fully automatic fuzzy classification
method is applicable only to hyper-intense nature
of tumors whereas the semiautomatic symmetry
analysis method is applicable to tumors that are
localized in one hemisphere only. In stage-2, a
deformable model to refine the initial tumor
segmentation is used. A tumor detection method
developed by Wang et al [5] is also based on
symmetry property of the brain. It uses a symmetry
measure, calculated between the gray level
histogram of the two cerebral hemispheres (CH), to
classify the slice as normal or abnormal. Both the
aforesaid methods are applicable to cerebrum
tumors and use the gray level histograms of the CHs
for symmetry analysis. Both of the methods need
either a user interaction or employ a complex
function to initialize the process.
In this paper, we present a knowledge-based
paradigm that combines the feature extraction,
image processing algorithms, graphics and fuzzy
techniques to produce an unsupervised system
capable of detecting the abnormality automatically
in T2-weighted MRI scans. If an asymmetry is found
in a slice then there is more likely a tumor to be
present in it [12]. In axial orientation, the upper
slices corresponding to cerebrum are approximately
symmetrical bilaterally. Hence our algorithm is
suitable to the cerebrum abnormalities, especially
caused by single tumor. The bilateral symmetry
2
checking is done about the boundary line
separating the CHs. Liang et al [19] defined that the
boundary between the CHs must lie within the
interhemispheral fissure (IHF). IHF is a deep cleft
and a longitudinal fissure between the CH and is
filled by CSF. Our method detects the boundary
that corresponds to IHF using the contour of brain.
We used our brain extraction algorithm (BEA) [20]
to extract the brain from T2 MR scans and is named
as T2-BEA. T2-BEA perfectly extracted the entire
brain even if they are separated by fissures [20]. It
also eliminated the non-brain tissues like eye and
scalp even if they have the similar intensities to
brain tissues. The performances of the T2-BEA is
found to be better than the well known existing
BEAs, brain extraction tool (BET) [21] and brain
surface extractor (BSE) [22]. Using the brain contour,
an intelligent system is developed to join the edges
of the cleft that corresponds to IHF present in the
contour [23]. Our system worked successfully on
several normal and abnormal 2D slices. This system
will be useful for further processing like tissue
segmentation, image compression, registration [24]
and bilaterally symmetry analysis procedures [23].
The detected boundary is then aligned with central
vertical line for symmetry checking. The symmetry
of the CSF segmented from the brain portion is
checked by using fuzzy symmetry measure (FSM).
The remaining part of this paper is organized as
follows. In section 2, the materials used in our
experiment are given. In section 3 an overview of
the method used is discussed. The results and
discussions presented in section 4. The conclusion is
given in section 5.
2. Materials
Twenty datasets of normal and abnormal subjects
were used in our experiments. The details of the
datasets are given in Table 1. The first ten datasets
(v01-v10) consisting of 2 normal volumes and 8
abnormal volumes with brain tumor (Neoplastic
disease) and multiple sclerosis were taken from the
website ‘The Whole Brain Atlas’. The remaining ten
datasets (v11-v20) were taken from KGS Scan
Centre, Madurai, India, which were acquired from
1.5T Siemens machine for 8 normal subjects and 2
abnormal subjects affected by tumors. The
dimension of each slice in volumes v01-v10 is
256 × 256 pixels and slice thickness varying from 2-
5mm with 260mm field of view. So the pixel
dimension is fitted to 1 × 1 mm. The slices taken
from 1.5T Siemens machines have a dimension of
448 × 512 pixels and 5mm thickness (except v18:
3mm) with 40-50% inter-slice gap. The field of view
 ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010

is fixed to 210 × 240 mm and hence the pixel and GM regions. The presence of abnormal tissues
dimension is set to 0.47x0.47 mm. Naturally, the in the CSF class can be detected by measuring the
voxel dimension is in anisotropic form in all our vertical symmetry of the CSF image. FSM is used as
datasets. a threshold to discriminate between normal and
abnormal CSF images. The Y axis of the Cartesian
Table 1: Details of Datasets used coordinate system is used as the vertical axis with
Data Volume Total
Gender Age Clinical origin at the centre of each slice.
set Identity slices
1 v01 Female 81 Normal 54
Our method comprise of a sequence of four
2 v02 Female 76 Normal 43 processes as given below.
3 v03 Female 51 Anaplastic 56
Astrocytoma 1. Brain extraction
4 v04 Male 35 Astrocytoma 29
2. Slice transformation
5 v05 Male 62 Metastatic 24
adeno 3. Tissue segmentation
carcinoma 4. Abnormality checking
6 v06 Female 42 Metastatic 24
bronchogenic 3.1. Brain Extraction
carcinoma
7 v07 Male 75 Meningioma 27
Numerous brain extraction algorithms (BEA) are
8 v08 Male 22 Sarcoma 24 available in literature [25, 26]. Our T2-BEA [20]
9 v09 Male 30 Multiple 24 makes use of anisotropic diffusion process [27],
Scelerosis optimal thresholding and morphological processes
10 v10 --- --- Multiple 54
[28] to separate the brain from non-brain portions.
Scelerosis
11 v11 Female 18 Normal 19
The diffusion process is used to highlight the brain
12 v12 Female 19 Normal 19 from T2 head scan. Then an intensity threshold is
13 v13 Male 43 Normal 19 computed using which a rough binary brain portion
14 v14 Female 32 Normal 19 is generated. The morphological operations, erosion
15 v15 Male 45 Normal 19
and dilation, and connected component analysis are
16 v16 Male 51 Normal 19
17 v17 Female 39 Normal 19
then performed on the rough brain portion to
18 v18 Male 43 Normal 19 produce the brain mask. Finally the brain mask is
19 v19 Female 55 Tumor 19 used to extract the brain from T2 scans.
20 v20 Male 38 Tumor 19 Then we find the boundary between CHs that
corresponds to IHF. An intelligent system is used
3. Method Overview [23] to detect the edges of the IHF present in the
In MR images, some of the non-brain tissues like fat, extracted brain. In each 2D axial slice, edge1 is
skin, muscles and background clutters have nearly marked at the nadir of the upper portion of cleft
the same intensity as that of tumors. Therefore the and edge2 is fixed at the zenith of the lower portion
brain portion should be extracted first to eliminate of cleft. Then a line is drawn by joining these two
these non-brain tissues. The extracted brain contour edges that corresponds to the boundary line
is used to detect the line separating the cerebral passing through IHF.
hemispheres. This linear boundary corresponds to
IHF. When an MRI is acquired, the head position 3.2. Slice Transformation
sometimes may not coincide with the world co- The detected boundary line is used to transform the
ordinate of the image acquisition system. There may MRI scans to the ideal world co-ordinate, here the
be a tilt in the acquired image. To perform the Cartesian co-ordinates system. The line
symmetry test for the CSF in MRI, the tilt has to be corresponding to IHF is aligned with the vertical
corrected. For this a slice transformation is done. central line, Y-axis of the Cartesian coordinate
The structural arrangement of the whole brain is system. This alignment is done by composite
similar on the both side of hemisphere and is transformation of translation followed by rotation.
symmetrical about the vertical axis through the The mapping procedure (M) to move from the
brain center. Tumors appear hyper intense in T2 imaging coordinates (IC) to world coordinates (WC)
scans and have intensity close to that of CSF. The is given by:
transformed brain is segmented into four major
classes WM, GM, CSF and background. This MWC, IC = R(90-θ) . T(d)
segmentation is useful to retain the cluster (1)
containing CSF and tumor and to remove the WM

3
 ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010

where T(d) is the translation matrix to map the

origin of two coordinate systems, R is the rotation θ = tan-1(m) (2)
matrix that align the boundary line with Y axis, d is
the translation distance along the horizontal (X) axis where m is the slope of the line. The transformation
and θ, the angle of deviation of boundary line about of the image shown in Fig.1(a) to world co-ordinate
the X axis. The value (90- θ) gives the required is shown in Fig.1(b).
rotation angle to fix the line with the vertical (Y) axis.
The angle θ is calculated as:

90-θ
θ

Figure 1: (a) MR scan with detected boundary (in dotted white color) and Cartesian coordinate system with centre as origin (in light gray
color) (b) Transformed image with coordinates θ and d

3.3. Tissue segmentation 1

The extracted brain is segmented into four major
u ij = 2
, (4)
classes WM, GM, CSF and background using fuzzy c ⎡ d ij ⎤ m −1

c-means (FCM) algorithm. FCM utilizes the fuzzy ∑ ⎢d

k =1 ⎣ ik ⎦
⎥
theory and is suitable for the anisotropic nature of
volumes that are affected by PVE [29-31]. This
n
method is frequently used in pattern recognition
and never misses a region [32, 33]. The aim of using
∑u
i =1
m
ij xi
FCM is to find cluster centers that minimize a
cj = n
. (5)
dissimilarity (objective) function given by: ∑u
i =1
m
ij
n c
Jm = ∑∑ u ijm d ij , (3)
i =1 j =1 This procedure will stop if the improvement of the
where m ∈ [1, ∞] is a weighting exponent, objective function over the previous iteration is
u ij ∈ [1,0] is the degree of membership xi in the [ ]
below a threshold value, ε ∈ 1,0 . By iteratively

cluster j, xi is the ith element of d-dimensional
measure data, cj is the d-dimensional center of the
cluster and dij is the Euclidean distance between ith
data point (xi) and jth centroid (cj).
The fuzzy portioning is carried out through an
iterative optimization of the objective function given
in equation (3), with the update of membership uij
and the cluster centers cj using:
updating the cluster centers and the membership
grades for each data point, FCM iteratively moves
the cluster centers to the “right” location within a
data set.
The FCM algorithm as proposed by Bezdek [32] is:

4
 ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010

Step 1: Randomly initialize the membership calculated and compared with the existing method
matrix U = [uij], U(0) that has a constraint predictive cognitive system for brain images (PCB).
equation given by Three successive versions of PCB, v.1, v.2 and v.3 [6-
c 8] were used to compare our results.
∑u
i =1
ij = 1, ∀j = 1,..n , (6)

Step 2: At the kth step, calculate the centroids

4. Results and Discussions
and objective function by using the Our method is implemented in Matlab 6.5 and
equations (5) and (3) respectively. tested on the images chosen from the material pool.
Step 3: Update U(k), U(k+1) by using the equation The experiments were performed in a 1.73 GHz Intel
(4) . Pentium dual-core processor, Windows XP with 1GB
Step 4: If stopping criteria ( ε ≤ 0.00001 ) is met RAM. The processing time taken by our method is
approximately 3 sec / slice.
then stop; otherwise return to Step 2.
Initially the qualitative performance of methods
on original MR scan is done. The sequence of
Then a binary image of CSF is created by removing
images obtained by using our procedure for a
the other regions like WM and GM. In that CSF
sample slice is shown in Fig.2. The brain portion of
image the foreground (in white) indicates the region
the original image (Fig.2(a)) extracted by our T2-
of CSF and background is in black color.
BEA is given in Fig.2(b). The boundary line between
3.4. Abnormality Checking
the CHs that is detected by our intelligent system is
Abnormal tissues in the CSF class can be detected
shown in Fig.2(c) along with the Cartesian space.
by measuring the symmetry of the CSF image. Here
The deviation of the boundary line from the world
the symmetry is computed by the fuzzy symmetric
space and corrected by the composite
measure (FSM) [34] given by:
transformation and the transformed image is shown
1
FSM(csfs) = 2
(7) in Fig.2(d). The CSF regions segmented by FCM
⎛ n − nR ⎞ algorithm is given in Fig.3. The central vertical line
1+ ⎜ L ⎟
⎝ 100 ⎠ shown in Fig.3 is used to check the fuzzy symmetry
between the CSF regions present on either side of it.
where nL and nR are the number of foreground
(white) pixels in the left and right half of the CSF
image present at either side of the central vertical
line (Y axis) of slice s. The symmetry values
calculated from normal CSF classes are generally
much larger than 0.1, and the values for abnormal
CSF classes are much smaller than 0.1 [1]. We fix
0.05 as a threshold value to FSM. If FSM(csfs) < 0.05
then the slice s is abnormal otherwise it is a normal
slice. The threshold value 0.05 was obtained after
doing several experiments on both normal and
abnormal scans. The 4-step procedure is applied to
all the slices and are marked them as normal or
abnormal.

3.5. Evaluation parameters

Both qualitative and quantitative validations were
used for the performance evaluation. The qualitative
evaluation is simply the visual inspection of the
result done by the experts in the field. For
quantitative study, false alarm (FA) and missed
Figure 2: (a) Original T2-w scan (b) Extracted brain portion by T2-
alarm (MA) parameters were used. False alarm is an BEA (c) Standard space (light grey lines) and boundary between
indication when the input scan which does not have the cerebral hemisphere (white dotted line) (d) Transformed
a tumor is marked as abnormal during analysis [8]. image to standard space
Missed alarm is an indication when an abnormal
image is not marked so during the analysis. The
percentage of such parameter per dataset is

5
 ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010
Figure 3: CSF image with CSF regions (white) and central vertical
line (light grey) for symmetry checking
The qualitative validation of our method was done
by four experts. The outputs produced by T2-BEA,
standard space alignment, segmentation of CSF
regions and their symmetry comparison along
central vertical line were approved by the experts.
They further suggested that identifying the
abnormality in MRI head scans might be useful to
quicken the diagnosis and prognostic processes for
single tumor or mass effect present in either of the
hemispheres.
The quantitative parameters, FA and MA, calculated
for 2 normal and 6 abnormal datasets are given in
Table 2. FA for the proposed system is obtained
only for v04 and v06 due to the swelling edema.
This effect narrowed down the sulci at higher levels
and thus reduced the cerebral CSF as shown in
Fig.4(a) and (b). This is also reflected in FSM of CSF
and recognized them as abnormal slices. Missed
alarm is obtained for v05, v06, v07 and v08. In v05,
the lesion is characterized by low signal on T2 image
with very little surrounding edema (Fig.4(c)). Hence
they are missed by the FSM calculation. In v06, the
end of lesion is represented by small region and
thus missed by FSM. The lesion in v07 and v08 is
equally scattered on both sides as shown in Fig.4(d)
and thus missed by the FSM calculation. None of
the alarm has been noticed for the normal volumes.
The values of FA and MA calculated by our method
along with that of the PCB are given in Table 3. The
FA indication in our method is lower than all the
6
versions of PCB. Out of eight data sets, our method
produced FA only for 2 sets whereas PCB produced
4 or more datasets. However the MA in our
proposed method is higher than the v.2 and v.3 and
lower than v.1 of PCB. The higher value of MA in
our method is due to equally scattered
characteristics of tumor or hypo-intense nature of
tumors. So they are completely missed in datasets
v05 and partially in v06, v07 and v08.
5. Conclusion
We have developed a fully automatic system which
can rapidly classify the given MRI data sets into
normal and abnormal. Our method is purely based
on intensity and is applicable to MR images with
single mass effect present within a hemisphere. Out
of 8 abnormal data sets our method was able to
detect the abnormality in 6 and produced false
alarm only for 2 data sets, when compared to 4 in
PCB. This work is currently extended to segment the
tumors and to compute the volume.
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank Dr. K.G. Srinivasan M.D.,
R.D., Consultant Radiologist, KGS Advanced MR &
CT Scan, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India and Dr. N.
Karunakaran DMRD., DNB., Consultant –
Radiodiagnosis, Meenakshi Mission Hospital and
Research Centre, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India for
providing the MRI Head scans and for giving the
qualitative validation. The authors would also wish
to thank Dr. K. Selvamuthukumaran M.Ch. (Neuro),
Sr. Consultant, Department of Neuro Surgery,
Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre,
Madurai, Tamilnadu, India and
Dr.S.P.Balachandran,M.D.,D.M., (Neuro), Neurologist,
Dindigul Neuro Centre, Dindigul District, Tamilnadu,
India for their help in verifying the results.
This work is catalysed and funded by Science for
Equity, Empowerment and Development (SEED)
Division, Department of Science and Technology
(DST), Government of India, New Delhi, Grant
number: SP/YO/011/2007 under the Scheme for
Young Scientists and Professionals (SYSP).
 ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 4: Slices corresponds to false alarm (a and b) and missed alarm (c and d) (a) slice from vo4, affected by intracranial hypertension
at right side of hemisphere (b) slice from v06, affected by intracranial hypertension at lower right side of hemisphere (c) slice from v05
with low signal tumor (d) slice from v07 with equally scattered lesion

Table 2: Performance of our method in terms of FA and MA

Total Abnormal Slices FA MA
No. Volume
Slice Actual Detected Slices % Slices %
1. v01 54 - - - 0 - 0
2. v02 43 - - - 0 - 0
3. v03 56 25-45 25-45 - 0 - 0
4. v04 29 11-20 11-24 21-24 13 - 0
5. v05 24 15-17 - - 0 15-17 13
6. v06 24 4-15 4-14,16-19 16-19 13 15 4
7. v07 27 11-16 11-14 - 0 15,16 7
8. v08 24 10-20 10-12,19,20 - 0 13-18 25
Average Performance 3 6

Table 3: Comparison of FA and MA obtained in our method with that of PCB (v.1, v.2 and v.3)
Total FA (%) MA (%)
No. Volume
Slice PCB v.1 PCB v.2 PCB v.3 Proposed PCB v.1 PCB v.2 PCB v.3 Proposed
1. v01 54 11 11 0 0 - - - -
2. v02 43 10 23 0 0 - - - -
3. v03 56 0 5 0 0 24 0 0 0
4. v04 29 25 8 7 13 48 5 5 0
5. v05 24 37 27 17 0 50 17 11 13
6. v06 24 5 5 0 13 28 0 0 4
7. v07 27 19 15 7 0 33 3 0 7
8. v08 24 14 19 9 0 25 4 4 25
Average 15 14 5 3 26 4 3 6

References
[1] Clark M.C., Hall L.O., Goldgof D.B., Velthuizen R.,
Murtagh F.R., and Silbiger M.S.,Automatic
Tumor Segmentation using Knowledge-Based
Technique, IEEE Transaction on Medical Imaging,
vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 187-201, 1998.
[2] Thamburaj A.V., Neurology and Systemic
Malignance, Apollo Hospital, Chennai,India,
http://www.thamburaj.com/cns_systemic_malign
ancy.htm, 2009.
[3] Hesselink J.R., Basic Principles of MR Imaging,
Department of Radiology, University of
California,
http://spinwarp.ucsd.edu/NeuroWeb/Text/br-
100.htm, 2009.
[4] Khotanlou H., Colliot O., Atif J., and Bloch I., 3D
Brain Tumor Segmentation in MRI using Fuzzy
Classification, Symmetry Analysis and Spatially
Constrained Deformable Models, Fuzzy Sets and
Systems, vol. 160, pp. 1457-1473, 2009.
[5] Wang Z., Hu Q., Loe K., Aziz A., and Nowinski
W.L., Rapid and Automatic Detection of Brain
Tumors in MR Images, Proceedings of SPIE,
Bellingham, WA, vol., 5369, pp. 602-612, 2004.
[6] Lau P.Y., and Ozawa S., PCB: A Predictive System
for Classifying Multimodel Brain Tumor Images
in an Image-Guided Medical Diagnosis Model,
Proceeding of the 12th International Conference
on Intelligent System for Molecular Biology,
Glasgow, UK, 2004.
[7] Lau P.Y., and Ozawa S., A Region- and Image-
Based Predictive Classification System for Brain
Tumor Detection, Proceeding of Symposium on
Biomedical Engineering, Hokkaido, Japan, pp.
72-102, 2004.
[8] Lau P.Y., and Ozawa S., A Multiparameter
Hierarchical Representation using Region-Based
Estimation Model For Detecting Tumor in T2-
Weighted MRI Brain Images, Malaysian Journal

7
 ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010
Of Computer Science, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 1-19,
2005.
[9] Jiang C., Zhsng X., Huang W., and Meinel C.,
Segmentation and Quantification of Brain
Tumor, IEEE International Conference on Virtual
Environment, Human-Computer Interfaces and
Measurement Systems – VECIMS 2004, Boston,
USA, PP. 12-14, July 2004.
[10] Kaus M.R., Warfield S.K., Nabavi N., Black P.M.,
Jolesz F.A., and Kikinis R., Automated
Segmentation of MR Images of Brain Tumors,
Radiology, vol. 218, pp. 586-591, 2001.
[11] Xie K., Yang J., Zhang Z.G., and Zhu Y.M., Semi
Automated Brain Tumor and Edema
Segmentation using MRI, European Journal of
Radiology, vol. 56, pp. 2219-2233, 2003.
[12] Mancas M., Gosselin B., and Macq B., Fast and
Automatic Tumoral Area Localization Using
Symmetry, Proceedings of IEEE ICASSP
Conference, Philadelphia, Pensylvania, USA,
2005.
[13] Dubey R.B., Ratan R., Hanmandlu M., and Gupta
S.K., Computer Assisted Segmentation of Brain
Tumor, TechnoramA, A Supplement to IEI News,
pp. 23-26, March 27, 2008.
[14] Cuadra M.B., Pollo C., Bardera A., Cuisenaire O.,
Villemure J., and Thiran P., Atlas Based
Segmentation of Pathological MR Brain Images
using a Model of Lesion Growth, IEEE Trans in
Medical Imaging, vol. 23, no. 10, pp. 1301-1313,
2004.
[15] Moon N., Bullitt E., Leemput K.V., and Gerig G.,
Model Based Brain and Tumor Segmentation,
ICPR Quebec, pp. 528-531, August 2002.
[16] Prastawa M., Bullitt E., Ho S., and Gerig G., A
Brain Tumor Segmentation Framework based on
Outlier Detection, Medical Image Analysis, vol.
18, no. 3, pp. 217-231, 2004.
[17] Capelle A.S. Colot O., and Fernandez C.,
Evidential Segmentation Scheme of Multi-Echo
MR Images for the Detection of Brain Tumors
using Neighborhood Information, Information
Fusion, vol. 5, pp. 203-216, 2004.
[18] Dou W., Ruan S., Chen Y., Bloyet D., Constans
J.M., A Framework of Fuzzy Information for the
Segmentation of Brain Tumor Tissues on MR
Images, Image and Vision Computing, vol. 25,
pp. 164-171, 2007.
[19] Liang L., Rehm K., Woods R., and Rottenberg D.,
Automatic Segmentation of Left and Right
Cerebral Himispheres from MRI Brain Volumes
using Graph Cut Algorithms, NeuroImage, vol.
34, pp. 1160-1170, 2007.
8
[20]Somasundaram K., and Kalaiselvi T., Fully
Automatic Brain Extraction Algorithm for Axial
T2-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Images,
Submitted after II revision to Computers in
Biology and Medicine, 2010.
[21] Smith S.M., Fast Robust Automated Brain
Extraction, Human Brain Mapping, vol.17, pp.
143-155, 2002.
[22] Shattuck D.W., Sandor-Leahy S.R., Schaper K.A.,
Rottenberg D.A., Leahy R.M., Magnetic
Resonance Image Tissue Classification Using a
Patrial Volume Model, NeuroImage, vol. 13(5),
pp. 856-876, 2001.
[23]Somasundaram K., and Kalaiselvi T., A Novel
Technique for Finding the Boundary between
the Cerebral Hemispheres from MR Axial Head
Scans, Proceeding of The 4th Indian
International Conference on Artificial
Intelligence – IICAI-09, Tumkur, Bangalore, India,
pp. 597-603, December 16-18, 2009.
[24] Zaidi H., Montandon M.L. and Slosman D.O.,
Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Guided
Attenuation and Scatter Corrections in Three-
Dimensional Brain Positron Emission
Tomography, Medical Physics, vol. 30, no. 5, pp.
937-948, 2003.
[25] Segonne F., Dale A. M., Busa E., Glessner M.,
Salat D., Hahn H. K. and Fischl B., A Hybrid
Approach to the Skull Stripping Problem in MRI,
NeuroImage, vol. 22, pp. 1060-1075, 2004.
[26] Somasundaram K., and Kalaiselvi T., Brain
Extraction Method for T1 Magnetic Resonance
Scans, Accepted in IEEE International
Conference on Signal Processing and
Communication - SPCOM2010, Indian Institute
of Sciences (IISc), Bangalore, India, July 18-21,
2010.
[27] Perona P., and Malik J., Scale-Space and Edge
Detection using Anisotropic Diffusion, IEEE
Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine
Intelligence, vol.12, no.7, pp.629-639, 1990.
[28]Sonka M., Hlavac V., and Boyle R., Image
processing, Analysis and Machine Vision, II
Edition, Brooks / Cole Publishing Company,
Pacific Grove, CA, 1999.
[29] Harris G., Andreasen N.C., Cizadlo T., Bailey J.M.,
Bockhold H.J., Magnotta V.A. and Arndt S.,
Improving Tissue Classification in MRI: A Three-
Dimensional Multispectral Discriminant Analysis
Method with Automated Training Class
Selection, Journal of Computer Assisted
Tomography, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 144-154, 1999.
[30] Yang M.S., Hu Y.J., Lin K.C.R. and Lin C.L.L.,
Segmentation Techniques for Tissue
 ICGST-GVIP Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2010
Differentiation in MRI of Ophthalmology using
Fuzzy Clustering Algorithms, Magnetic
Resonance Imaging, vol. 20, pp. 173-179, 2002.
[31] Pham D.I., Xu C. and Prince J.I., A Survey of
Current Methods in Medical Image
Segmentation, Technical Report JHU/ECE 99-01.
[32] Bezdek J.C., Pattern Recognition with Fuzzy
Objective Function Algorithms, Plenum Press,
New York, 1981.
Somasundaram .K was
born in the year 1953.
He received the M.Sc
degree in Physics from
University of Madras,
Chennai, India in 1976,
the Post Graduate
Diploma in Computer
Methods from Madurai
Kamaraj University,
Madurai, India in 1989 and the Ph.D degree in
theoretical Physics from Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore, India in 1984. He is presently the
Professor and Head of the Department of Computer
Science and Applications, and Head, Computer
Centre at Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram,
India. From 1976 to 1989, he was a Professor with
the Department of Physics at the same Institute. He
was previously a Researcher at an International
Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy and a
Development Fellow of Commonwealth Universities
at the school of Multimedia, Edith Cowan University,
Australia. His research interests are in image
processing, image compression and medical
imaging. He is a Life member of Indian Society for
Technical Education. He is also an annual member in
ACM, USA and IEEE Computer Society, USA.
[33]Somasundaram K., and Kalaiselvi T., A
Comparative Study of Segmentation Techniques
Used for MR Brain Images, Proceedings of The
International Conference on Image Processing,
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition –
IPCV’09, WORLDCOMP’09, Los Vegas, Nevada,
USA, vol. II, pp. 597-603, 2009.
[34] Zimmermann H.J., Fuzzy Set Theory and its
Applications, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
second edition, Boston, MA, 1991.
Kalaiselvi .T was born
in Tamilnadu, India, in
1974. She received her
Bachelor of Science
(B.Sc) degree in
Mathematics and
Physics in 1994 and
Master of Computer
Applications (M.C.A)
degree in 1997 from
Avinashilingam University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu,
India. From 1997 to 1998 she was a Lecturer in
Department of Computer Science, Avinahilingam
University, India. Since 1998, she has been with
Gandhigram Rural Institute, Dindigul, Tamilnadu,
India, where she was a Lecturer in Department of
Computer Science and Applications till 2006. From
2006 she was a full time research scholar in the
same department and awarded Ph.D degree in Feb.,
2010. In 2008, she received a project from
Department of Science and Technology (DST),
Government of India under Scheme for Young
Scientist and Professional (SYSP), Society for Equity,
Empowerment and Development (SEED) Division for
three years (2008-2011). Now she is a young
scientist, working as a Principal Investigator (PI) of
the sanctioned project in the same department. Her
research focuses on Brain Image Processing and
brain tumor or lesion detection from MRI Head
Scans to enrich the Computer Aided Diagnostic
process, Telemedicine and Tele-radiology services.