AM-FM texture segmentation in electron microscopic muscle imaging

This paper describes the application of an amplitude modulation-frequency m odulation (AM-FM) image representation in segmenting electron micrographs o f skeletal muscle for the recognition of: 1) normal sarcomere ultrastructur al pattern and 2) abnormal regions that occur in sarcomeres in various myop athies. A total of 26 electron micrographs from different myopathies were u sed for this study. It is shown that the AM-FM image representation can ide ntify normal repetitive structures and sarcomeres, with a good degree of ac curacy. This system can also detect abnormalities in sarcomeres which alter the normal regular pattern, as seen in muscle pathology, with a recognitio n accuracy of 75%-84% as compared to a human expert.