FAST-PVE: Extremely fast Markov random field based brain MRI tissue classification

Abstract

We present an extremely fast method named FAST-PVE for tissue classification and partial volume estimation of 3-D brain magnetic resonance images (MRI) using a Markov Random Field (MRF) based spatial prior. The tissue classification problem is central to most brain MRI analysis pipelines and therefore solving it accurately and fast is important. The FAST-PVE method is experimentally confirmed to tissue classify a standard MR image in under 10 seconds with the quantitative accuracy similar to other state of art methods. A key component of the FAST-PVE method is the fast ICM algorithm, which is generally applicable to any MRF-based segmentation method, and formally proven to produce the same segmentation result as the standard ICM algorithm. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.