Modeling and Reversing Brain Lesions Using Diffusion Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zamzam, Omar, Akrami, Haleh, Joshi, Anand, Leahy, Richard
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zamzam, Omar
Akrami, Haleh
Joshi, Anand
Leahy, Richard
author_facet Zamzam, Omar
Akrami, Haleh
Joshi, Anand
Leahy, Richard
contents Brain lesions are abnormalities or injuries in brain tissue that are often detectable using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which reveals structural changes in the affected areas. This broad definition of brain lesions includes areas of the brain that are irreversibly damaged, as well as areas of brain tissue that are deformed as a result of lesion growth or swelling. Despite the importance of differentiating between damaged and deformed tissue, existing lesion segmentation methods overlook this distinction, labeling both of them as a single anomaly. In this work, we introduce a diffusion model-based framework for analyzing and reversing the brain lesion process. Our pipeline first segments abnormal regions in the brain, then estimates and reverses tissue deformations by restoring displaced tissue to its original position, isolating the core lesion area representing the initial damage. Finally, we inpaint the core lesion area to arrive at an estimation of the pre-lesion healthy brain. This proposed framework reverses a forward lesion growth process model that is well-established in biomechanical studies that model brain lesions. Our results demonstrate improved accuracy in lesion segmentation, characterization, and brain labeling compared to traditional methods, offering a robust tool for clinical and research applications in brain lesion analysis. Since pre-lesion healthy versions of abnormal brains are not available in any public dataset for validation of the reverse process, we simulate a forward model to synthesize multiple lesioned brain images.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_05670
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Modeling and Reversing Brain Lesions Using Diffusion Models
Zamzam, Omar
Akrami, Haleh
Joshi, Anand
Leahy, Richard
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Brain lesions are abnormalities or injuries in brain tissue that are often detectable using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which reveals structural changes in the affected areas. This broad definition of brain lesions includes areas of the brain that are irreversibly damaged, as well as areas of brain tissue that are deformed as a result of lesion growth or swelling. Despite the importance of differentiating between damaged and deformed tissue, existing lesion segmentation methods overlook this distinction, labeling both of them as a single anomaly. In this work, we introduce a diffusion model-based framework for analyzing and reversing the brain lesion process. Our pipeline first segments abnormal regions in the brain, then estimates and reverses tissue deformations by restoring displaced tissue to its original position, isolating the core lesion area representing the initial damage. Finally, we inpaint the core lesion area to arrive at an estimation of the pre-lesion healthy brain. This proposed framework reverses a forward lesion growth process model that is well-established in biomechanical studies that model brain lesions. Our results demonstrate improved accuracy in lesion segmentation, characterization, and brain labeling compared to traditional methods, offering a robust tool for clinical and research applications in brain lesion analysis. Since pre-lesion healthy versions of abnormal brains are not available in any public dataset for validation of the reverse process, we simulate a forward model to synthesize multiple lesioned brain images.
title Modeling and Reversing Brain Lesions Using Diffusion Models
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05670