Journal article
An algorithm for optimal fusion of atlases with different labeling protocols
BCBL – Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language1
Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School2
University of California at San Francisco3
Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark4
Visual Computing, Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark5
In this paper we present a novel label fusion algorithm suited for scenarios in which different manual delineation protocols with potentially disparate structures have been used to annotate the training scans (hereafter referred to as "atlases"). Such scenarios arise when atlases have missing structures, when they have been labeled with different levels of detail, or when they have been taken from different heterogeneous databases.
The proposed algorithm can be used to automatically label a novel scan with any of the protocols from the training data. Further, it enables us to generate new labels that are not present in any delineation protocol by defining intersections on the underling labels. We first use probabilistic models of label fusion to generalize three popular label fusion techniques to the multi-protocol setting: majority voting, semi-locally weighted voting and STAPLE.
Then, we identify some shortcomings of the generalized methods, namely the inability to produce meaningful posterior probabilities for the different labels (majority voting, semi-locally weighted voting) and to exploit the similarities between the atlases (all three methods). Finally, we propose a novel generative label fusion model that can overcome these drawbacks.
We use the proposed method to combine four brain MRI datasets labeled with different protocols (with a total of 102 unique labeled structures) to produce segmentations of 148 brain regions. Using cross-validation, we show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the generalizations of majority voting, semi-locally weighted voting and STAPLE (mean Dice score 83%, vs. 77%, 80% and 79%, respectively).
We also evaluated the proposed algorithm in an aging study, successfully reproducing some well-known results in cortical and subcortical structures. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Language: | English |
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Year: | 2015 |
Pages: | 451-463 |
ISSN: | 10959572 and 10538119 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.11.031 |
ORCIDs: | Van Leemput, Koen |
04500, Mathematical biology and statistical methods 10515, Biophysics - Biocybernetics 20504, Nervous system - Physiology and biochemistry Computational Biology Models and Simulations Nervous System Neural Coordination STAPLE method mathematical and computer techniques atlas label fusion algorithm mathematical and computer techniques brain MRI laboratory techniques, imaging and microscopy techniques probabilistic model mathematical and computer techniques