Segmenting Internal Brain Nuclei in MRI Brain Image Using Morphological Operators

Abstract

We present a new technique for segmenting brain nuclei from MRI brain images. Our method performs the segmentation using a combination approach of thresholding with morphological operators. The MRI brain image contains skull and noisy background. The latter have to be removed for further analysis. Elimination of any obstacles and noise from the image is the primary function of the morphological operators. We use simple morphological operators like dilation, erosion, opening and closing to the binarized MRI brain image. The results of skull stripped MR image with the use of disk shaped structuring elements are presented in the paper. The proposed method has been applied to a large number of MR images showing promising results for various image qualities, encouraging for future.