A single latent channel is sufficient for biomedical glottis segmentation

Language
en
Document Type
Article
Issue Date
2023-06-30
Issue Year
2022
Authors
Kist, Andreas M.
Breininger, Katharina
Dörrich, Marion
Dürr, Stephan
Schützenberger, Anne
Semmler, Marion
Editor
Publisher
Springer Nature
Abstract

Glottis segmentation is a crucial step to quantify endoscopic footage in laryngeal high-speed videoendoscopy. Recent advances in deep neural networks for glottis segmentation allow for a fully automatic workflow. However, exact knowledge of integral parts of these deep segmentation networks remains unknown, and understanding the inner workings is crucial for acceptance in clinical practice. Here, we show that a single latent channel as a bottleneck layer is sufficient for glottal area segmentation using systematic ablations. We further demonstrate that the latent space is an abstraction of the glottal area segmentation relying on three spatially defined pixel subtypes allowing for a transparent interpretation. We further provide evidence that the latent space is highly correlated with the glottal area waveform, can be encoded with four bits, and decoded using lean decoders while maintaining a high reconstruction accuracy. Our findings suggest that glottis segmentation is a task that can be highly optimized to gain very efficient and explainable deep neural networks, important for application in the clinic. In the future, we believe that online deep learning-assisted monitoring is a game-changer in laryngeal examinations.

Journal Title
Scientific Reports
Volume
12
Citation

Scientific Reports 12 (2022): 14292. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-17764-1

Zugehörige ORCIDs