Patent ID: 8315451

Claim:
A method for segmentation of an MRI image of a tissue in presence of partial volume effects, the method which comprises the following steps: a) storing the MRI image in a K-space representation as a raw dataset, the dataset including coordinates of a totality of voxels and a totality of related light intensity values of the tissue; b) reconstructing a number N of images, each respectively represented by N individual sets of voxels and N individual sets of light intensity values, with the number N being greater than or equal to 2; c) dividing each voxel of the N sets of voxels into a fixed number of sub voxels being equal in size and assigning the light intensity value of the voxel to its sub voxels; d) performing a classification of each sub voxel according to its light intensity value, the classification yielding a probability value for a presence of at least one predetermined tissue type at a location of the sub voxel; e) identifying a totality of particular sub voxels classified with an equal probability for each one of a totality of the tissue types and labeling the particular sub voxels as partial volume sub voxels; f) shifting each of N−1 images starting with the second image by one sub voxel relatively to a preceding image and generating a new set of overlay sub voxels; g) determining a new set of probability values for the new set of overlay sub voxels by building for each overlay sub voxel an average mean of the probability values of all corresponding overlaid sub voxels of the N images; and h) creating an overlay image composed of the new set of overlaid sub voxels.