Statistical morphological skull stripping of adult and infant MRI data

Comput Biol Med. 2007 Mar;37(3):342-57. doi: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2006.04.001. Epub 2006 Jun 21.

Abstract

This paper describes a novel automatic statistical morphology skull stripper (SMSS) that uniquely exploits a statistical self-similarity measure and a 2-D brain mask to delineate the brain. The result of applying SMSS to 20 MRI data set volumes, including scans of both adult and infant subjects is also described. Quantitative performance assessment was undertaken with the use of brain masks provided by a brain segmentation expert. The performance is compared with an alternative technique known as brain extraction tool. The results suggest that SMSS is capable of skull-stripping neurological data with small amounts of over- and under-segmentation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Artifacts
  • Brain / anatomy & histology*
  • Expert Systems*
  • Humans
  • Image Enhancement / methods*
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Infant
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / methods
  • Models, Statistical*
  • Skull / anatomy & histology
  • Software*