Efficient Training on Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Learnable Weighted Pooling for 3D PET Brain Image Classification

Three-dimensional convolutional neural networks (3D CNNs) have been widely applied to analyze Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brain images for a better understanding of the disease progress or predicting the conversion from cognitively impaired (CU) or mild cognitive impairment status. It is well-known tha...

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Main Authors: Xin Xing, Muhammad Usman Rafique, Gongbo Liang, Hunter Blanton, Yu Zhang, Chris Wang, Nathan Jacobs, Ai-Ling Lin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-01-01
Series:Electronics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/12/2/467
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author Xin Xing
Muhammad Usman Rafique
Gongbo Liang
Hunter Blanton
Yu Zhang
Chris Wang
Nathan Jacobs
Ai-Ling Lin
author_facet Xin Xing
Muhammad Usman Rafique
Gongbo Liang
Hunter Blanton
Yu Zhang
Chris Wang
Nathan Jacobs
Ai-Ling Lin
author_sort Xin Xing
collection DOAJ
description Three-dimensional convolutional neural networks (3D CNNs) have been widely applied to analyze Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brain images for a better understanding of the disease progress or predicting the conversion from cognitively impaired (CU) or mild cognitive impairment status. It is well-known that training 3D-CNN is computationally expensive and with the potential of overfitting due to the small sample size available in the medical imaging field. Here we proposed a novel 3D-2D approach by converting a 3D brain image to a 2D fused image using a Learnable Weighted Pooling (LWP) method to improve efficient training and maintain comparable model performance. By the 3D-to-2D conversion, the proposed model can easily forward the fused 2D image through a pre-trained 2D model while achieving better performance over different 3D and 2D baselines. In the implementation, we chose to use ResNet34 for feature extraction as it outperformed other 2D CNN backbones. We further showed that the weights of the slices are location-dependent and the model performance relies on the 3D-to-2D fusion view, with the best outcomes from the coronal view. With the new approach, we were able to reduce 75% of the training time and increase the accuracy to 0.88, compared with conventional 3D CNNs, for classifying amyloid-beta PET imaging from the AD patients from the CU participants using the publicly available Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative dataset. The novel 3D-2D model may have profound implications for timely AD diagnosis in clinical settings in the future.
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spelling doaj.art-d0f00ac1cda0410ba96185ca59f255e92023-11-30T22:00:52ZengMDPI AGElectronics2079-92922023-01-0112246710.3390/electronics12020467Efficient Training on Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Learnable Weighted Pooling for 3D PET Brain Image ClassificationXin Xing0Muhammad Usman Rafique1Gongbo Liang2Hunter Blanton3Yu Zhang4Chris Wang5Nathan Jacobs6Ai-Ling Lin7Department of Computer Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USAKitware Inc., Clifton Park, NY 12065, USADepartment of Computing and Cyber Security, Texas A & M University-San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78224, USADepartment of Computer Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USADepartment of Computer Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USADepartment of Computer Science, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USADepartment of Computer Science & Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USADepartment of Radiology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65212, USAThree-dimensional convolutional neural networks (3D CNNs) have been widely applied to analyze Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brain images for a better understanding of the disease progress or predicting the conversion from cognitively impaired (CU) or mild cognitive impairment status. It is well-known that training 3D-CNN is computationally expensive and with the potential of overfitting due to the small sample size available in the medical imaging field. Here we proposed a novel 3D-2D approach by converting a 3D brain image to a 2D fused image using a Learnable Weighted Pooling (LWP) method to improve efficient training and maintain comparable model performance. By the 3D-to-2D conversion, the proposed model can easily forward the fused 2D image through a pre-trained 2D model while achieving better performance over different 3D and 2D baselines. In the implementation, we chose to use ResNet34 for feature extraction as it outperformed other 2D CNN backbones. We further showed that the weights of the slices are location-dependent and the model performance relies on the 3D-to-2D fusion view, with the best outcomes from the coronal view. With the new approach, we were able to reduce 75% of the training time and increase the accuracy to 0.88, compared with conventional 3D CNNs, for classifying amyloid-beta PET imaging from the AD patients from the CU participants using the publicly available Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative dataset. The novel 3D-2D model may have profound implications for timely AD diagnosis in clinical settings in the future.https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/12/2/467efficient trainingAlzheimer’s diseasedeep learning3D-to-2D module
spellingShingle Xin Xing
Muhammad Usman Rafique
Gongbo Liang
Hunter Blanton
Yu Zhang
Chris Wang
Nathan Jacobs
Ai-Ling Lin
Efficient Training on Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Learnable Weighted Pooling for 3D PET Brain Image Classification
Electronics
efficient training
Alzheimer’s disease
deep learning
3D-to-2D module
title Efficient Training on Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Learnable Weighted Pooling for 3D PET Brain Image Classification
title_full Efficient Training on Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Learnable Weighted Pooling for 3D PET Brain Image Classification
title_fullStr Efficient Training on Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Learnable Weighted Pooling for 3D PET Brain Image Classification
title_full_unstemmed Efficient Training on Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Learnable Weighted Pooling for 3D PET Brain Image Classification
title_short Efficient Training on Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Learnable Weighted Pooling for 3D PET Brain Image Classification
title_sort efficient training on alzheimer s disease diagnosis with learnable weighted pooling for 3d pet brain image classification
topic efficient training
Alzheimer’s disease
deep learning
3D-to-2D module
url https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/12/2/467
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