Classification of Brain MR Images Using Spatial Information

The medical information system is an effective medical diagnosis assistance system which offers an environment in which medial images and diagnosis information can be shared. However, this system can only stored and transmitted information without other functions. To resolve this problem and to enhance the efficiency of diagnostic activities, a medical image classification and retrieval system is necessary. The medical image classification and retrieval system can improve efficiency in a medical diagnosis by providing disease-related images and can be useful in various medical practices by checking diverse cases. However, it is difficult to understand the meanings contained in images because the existing image classification and retrieval system has handled superficial information only. Therefore, a medical image classification system which can classify medical images by analyzing the relation among the elements of the image as well as the superficial information has been required. In this paper, we propose the method for learning and classification of brain MRI, in which the superficial information as well as the spatial information extracted from images are used. The superficial information of images, which is color, shape, etc., is called low-level image information and the logical information of the image is called high-level image information. In extracting both low-level and high-level image information in this paper, the anatomical names and structure of the brain have been used. The low-level information is used to give an anatomical name in brain images and the high-level image information is extracted by analyzing the relation among the anatomical parts. Each information is used in learning and classification. In an experiment, the MRI of the brain including disease have been used.