Medical Imaging Analysis with Artificial Neural Networks

Given the fact that neural networks have been widely reported in the research community of medical imaging, we provide a focused literature survey on recent neural network developments in computeraided diagnosis, medical image segmentation and edge detection toward visual content analysis, and medical image registration for its pre-processing and post processing, with the aim of increasing awareness of how neural networks can be applied to these areas and providing a foundation for further research and practical development. Representative techniques and algorithms are explained in detail to provide inspiring examples illustrating: (i) how a known neural network with fixed structure and training procedure could be applied to resolve a medical imaging problem; (ii) how medical images could be analysed, processed, and characterised by neural networks; and (iii) how neural networks could be expanded further to resolve problems relevant to medical imaging. In the concluding section, a highlight of comparisons among all neural networks is included to provide a global view on computational intelligence with neural networks in medical imaging. Indexing terms: neural networks, medical imaging analysis, and intelligent computing.