Segmentation and interpretation of MR brain images using an improved knowledge-based active shape model

An improvement of the Active Shape procedure introduced by Cootes and Taylor is presented. The new automated brain segmentation and interpretation approach incorporates a priori knowledge about neuroanatomic structures and their specific structural relationships to provide robust segmentation and labeling. The method was trained in 8 MR brain images and tested in 19 brain images by comparison to observer-defined independent standards. Neuroanatomic structures in all images from the test set were successfully identified. The presented method is applicable to virtually any task involving deformable shape analysis.