NeuroVascU-Net: A Unified Multi-Scale and Cross-Domain Adaptive Feature Fusion U-Net for Precise 3D Segmentation of Brain Vessels in Contrast-Enhanced T1 MRI

TL;DR

NeuroVascU-Net is a novel deep learning model designed for accurate and efficient 3D segmentation of brain vessels from standard T1CE MRI, addressing clinical needs with high precision and low computational cost.

Contribution

It introduces a specialized U-Net architecture with multi-scale and cross-domain modules tailored for cerebrovascular segmentation in T1CE MRI, filling a gap in neuro-oncology imaging.

Findings

Achieved a Dice score of 0.8609 on T1CE scans.

Requires only 12.4 million parameters, fewer than transformer models.

Accurately segments both major and fine vascular structures.

Abstract

Precise 3D segmentation of cerebral vasculature from T1-weighted contrast-enhanced (T1CE) MRI is crucial for safe neurosurgical planning. Manual delineation is time-consuming and prone to inter-observer variability, while current automated methods often trade accuracy for computational cost, limiting clinical use. We present NeuroVascU-Net, the first deep learning architecture specifically designed to segment cerebrovascular structures directly from clinically standard T1CE MRI in neuro-oncology patients, addressing a gap in prior work dominated by TOF-MRA-based approaches. NeuroVascU-Net builds on a dilated U-Net and integrates two specialized modules: a Multi-Scale Contextual Feature Fusion ($MSC^2F$) module at the bottleneck and a Cross-Domain Adaptive Feature Fusion ($CDA^2F$) module at deeper hierarchical layers. $MSC^2F$ captures both local and global information via multi-scale dilated convolutions, while $CDA^2F$ dynamically integrates domain-specific features, enhancing representation while keeping computation low. The model was trained and validated on a curated dataset of T1CE scans from 137 brain tumor biopsy patients, annotated by a board-certified functional neurosurgeon. NeuroVascU-Net achieved a Dice score of 0.8609 and precision of 0.8841, accurately segmenting both major and fine vascular structures. Notably, it requires only 12.4M parameters, significantly fewer than transformer-based models such as Swin U-NetR. This balance of accuracy and efficiency positions NeuroVascU-Net as a practical solution for computer-assisted neurosurgical planning.