Automated Brain Lobe Segmentation and Feature Extraction from
Multiple Sclerosis Lesions Using Deep Learning
Nada Haj Messaoud
1,2 a
, Rim Ayari
2b
Asma Ben Abdallah
2c
and Mohamed Hedi Bedoui
2d
1
Faculty of Sciences of Monastir (FSM), University of Monastir, Monastir, Tunisia
2
Medical Technology and Image Processing Laboratory, Faculty of medicine, University of Monastir, Monastir, Tunisia
Keywords: Brain Lobes Segmentation, Deep Learning, Multiple Sclerosis Lesion, U-Net, Features Extraction.
Abstract: This study focuses on automating the segmentation of brain lobes in MRI images of Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
lesions to extract crucial features for predicting disability levels. Extracting significant features from MRI
images of MS lesions is indeed a complex task due to the variability in lesion characteristics and the detailed
nature of MRI images. Furthermore, all these studies required continuous patient monitoring. Therefore, our
contribution lies in proposing an approach for the automatic segmentation of brain lobes and the extraction of
lesion features (number, size, location, etc.) to predict disability levels in MS patients. To achieve this, we
introduced a model inspired by U-Net to perform the segmentation of different brain lobes, aiming to
accurately locate the MS lesions. We utilized two private and public databases and achieved an average mean
IoU score of 0.70, which can be considered encouraging. Following the segmentation phase, approximately
7200 features were extracted from the MRI scans of MS patients.
1 INTRODUCTION
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disease of
the central nervous system (CNS) characterized by
damage to the protective myelin surrounding the nerve
fibers within the brain and spinal cord. It primarily
affects young adults and leads to increasing disability
(Thompson, et al., 2018). Diagnosis is confirmed
through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), with
varying contrast in cerebral MRI. MS lesions are
surrounded by edema, which appears as a
hyperintense signal on the T2 FLAIR image. These
lesions can appear in different areas of the brain. They
are characterized by their variability in terms of
volume, location, shape, subjects, and texture, leading
to symptoms that vary depending on where these
lesions are located. Consequently, the cerebral lobes
are also vulnerable to the impact of MS, as they
contain numerous nerve fibers and play a crucial role
in various brain functions. So, MS Lesion appears in:
• The temporal lobe can affect vision, touch,
memory, hearing, and language comprehension.
a
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6243-1373
b
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8292-7656
c
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7821-7734
d
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4846-1722
• The frontal lobe can lead to issues with
emotional control, cognitive functions, planning,
decision-making, as well as the supervision of
voluntary movements and activities.
• The parietal lobe can disrupt the processing of
information related to temperature, taste, touch, and
movement.
• The occipital lobe can lead to vision problems,
such as visual perception alterations, visual
disturbances, and even partial or total vision loss.
Thus, extracting meaningful features from brain
lesions to classify these anomalies based on cerebral
lobes can provide valuable insights into predicting
which human activities or tasks may be affected by
these abnormalities. Therefore, to extract these
features, a step of segmenting the different cerebral
lobes is required to facilitate the localization of brain
lesions. However, automatic brain region
segmentation is challenging due to variations of brain
size and shape from one individual to another, as well
as variations in the quality, size, and number of MRI
slices. Furthermore, cerebral lobe segmentation is