mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

DiffuseMorph: Unsupervised Deformable Image Registration Using Diffusion Model

arXiv 2112.05149 ↗First posted 9 Dec 2021eess.IV cs.CV cs.LGcited by 57

On the map: Diffusion models → Medical imaging and segmentation

Abstract (arXiv)

Deformable image registration is one of the fundamental tasks in medical imaging. Classical registration algorithms usually require a high computational cost for iterative optimizations. Although deep-learning-based methods have been developed for fast image registration, it is still challenging to obtain realistic continuous deformations from a moving image to a fixed image with less topological folding problem. To address this, here we present a novel diffusion-model-based image registration method, called DiffuseMorph. DiffuseMorph not only generates synthetic deformed images through reverse diffusion but also allows image registration by deformation fields. Specifically, the deformation fields are generated by the conditional score function of the deformation between the moving and fixed images, so that the registration can be performed from continuous deformation by simply scaling the latent feature of the score. Experimental results on 2D facial and 3D medical image registration tasks demonstrate that our method provides flexible deformations with topology preservation capability.

Key facts. Cited by 57 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Medical imaging and segmentation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 31 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Dec 2021.

Builds on

31 of 48 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2020Patch2Self: Denoising Diffusion MRI with Self-Supervised Learning2 Nov

Other references · 30

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
  2. 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 36,960
  3. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  4. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
  5. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 8,964
  6. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  7. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,067
  8. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 3,736
  9. 2015Delving Deep into Rectifiers: Surpassing Human-Level Performance on ImageNet Classificationcited by 3,590
  10. 2018Group Normalizationcited by 1,514
  11. 2021Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinementcited by 1,506
  12. 2015Spatial Transformer Networkscited by 1,423
18 more
  1. 2021Cascaded Diffusion Models for High Fidelity Image Generationcited by 1,155
  2. 2017Sigmoid-Weighted Linear Units for Neural Network Function Approximation in Reinforcement Learningcited by 935
  3. 2021Score-based Generative Modeling in Latent Spacecited by 634
  4. 2021ILVR: Conditioning Method for Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 634
  5. 2020WaveGrad: Estimating Gradients for Waveform Generationcited by 620
  6. 2019Unsupervised Learning of Probabilistic Diffeomorphic Registration for Images and Surfacescited by 186
  7. 2018A Deep Learning Framework for Unsupervised Affine and Deformable Image Registrationcited by 160
  8. 2021Diff-TTS: A Denoising Diffusion Model for Text-to-Speechcited by 156
  9. 2018An Unsupervised Learning Model for Deformable Medical Image Registrationcited by 150
  10. 2021UNIT-DDPM: UNpaired Image Translation with Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 133
  11. 2018Unsupervised Learning for Fast Probabilistic Diffeomorphic Registrationcited by 116
  12. 2017Quicksilver: Fast Predictive Image Registration - a Deep Learning Approachcited by 113
  13. 2020Fast Symmetric Diffeomorphic Image Registration with Convolutional Neural Networkscited by 107
  14. 2018Weakly-Supervised Convolutional Neural Networks for Multimodal Image Registrationcited by 90
  15. 2020CycleMorph: Cycle Consistent Unsupervised Deformable Image Registrationcited by 78
  16. 2019DeepAtlas: Joint Semi-Supervised Learning of Image Registration and Segmentationcited by 66
  17. 2018Unsupervised Probabilistic Deformation Modeling for Robust Diffeomorphic Registrationcited by 23
  18. 2018Deep Learning based Inter-Modality Image Registration Supervised by Intra-Modality Similaritycited by 16

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2022: 3; 2023: 10; 2024: 21; 2025: 16; 2026: 7.

57 papers.

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  1. 2022Diffusion Models for Medical Image Analysis: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 269
  2. 2022A Survey on Generative Diffusion Modelcited by 238
  3. 2022SADM: Sequence-Aware Diffusion Model for Longitudinal Medical Image Generationcited by 56
  4. 2023A survey on deep learning in medical image registration: new technologies, uncertainty, evaluation metrics, and beyondcited by 55
  5. 2024Correlation-aware Coarse-to-fine MLPs for Deformable Medical Image Registrationcited by 37
  6. 2024Fast-DDPM: Fast Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models for Medical Image-to-Image Generationcited by 33
  7. 2023Diffusion Models for Contrast Harmonization of Magnetic Resonance Imagescited by 19
  8. 2023FSDiffReg: Feature-wise and Score-wise Diffusion-guided Unsupervised Deformable Image Registration for Cardiac Imagescited by 18
  9. 2024TADM: Temporally-Aware Diffusion Model for Neurodegenerative Progression on Brain MRIcited by 18
  10. 2024Data-Efficient Unsupervised Interpolation Without Any Intermediate Frame for 4D Medical Imagescited by 15
  11. 2024Deep Generative Models for 3D Medical Image Synthesiscited by 14
  12. 2024StainDiffuser: MultiTask Dual Diffusion Model for Virtual Stainingcited by 11
38 more
  1. 2023Semantic Image Synthesis for Abdominal CTcited by 10
  2. 2023A Survey of Emerging Applications of Diffusion Probabilistic Models in MRIcited by 9
  3. 2023Adaptive Correspondence Scoring for Unsupervised Medical Image Registrationcited by 9
  4. 2024Diff-Def: Diffusion-Generated Deformation Fields for Conditional Atlasescited by 8
  5. 2024SimuScope: Realistic Endoscopic Synthetic Dataset Generation through Surgical Simulation and Diffusion Modelscited by 8
  6. 2025Learning Patient-Specific Disease Dynamics with Latent Flow Matching for Longitudinal Imaging Generationcited by 8
  7. 2023Denoising Diffusion Post-Processing for Low-Light Image Enhancementcited by 7
  8. 2024Deformation-Recovery Diffusion Model (DRDM): Instance Deformation for Image Manipulation and Synthesiscited by 7
  9. 2023AutoFuse: Automatic Fusion Networks for Deformable Medical Image Registrationcited by 6
  10. 2024DiffuseReg: Denoising Diffusion Model for Obtaining Deformation Fields in Unsupervised Deformable Image Registrationcited by 6
  11. 2025Improving Generalization of Medical Image Registration Foundation Modelcited by 6
  12. 2023A Recycling Training Strategy for Medical Image Segmentation with Diffusion Denoising Modelscited by 5
  13. 2024Bidirectional Recurrence for Cardiac Motion Tracking with Gaussian Process Latent Codingcited by 5
  14. 2026Towards a Medical AI Scientistcited by 5
  15. 2024Medical Image Registration and Its Application in Retinal Images: A Reviewcited by 3
  16. 2024Large Language Models for Multimodal Deformable Image Registrationcited by 3
  17. 2024TPIE: Topology-Preserved Image Editing With Text Instructionscited by 3
  18. 2025Deformable registration and generative modelling of aortic anatomies by auto-decoders and neural ODEscited by 3
  19. 2025Temporally-Aware Diffusion Model for Brain Progression Modelling with Bidirectional Temporal Regularisationcited by 3
  20. 2024Gaussian Primitives for Deformable Image Registrationcited by 2
  21. 2024Learning Geodesics of Geometric Shape Deformations From Imagescited by 2
  22. 2025CoRLD: Contrastive Representation Learning Of Deformable Shapes In Imagescited by 2
  23. 2024Learning Diffeomorphism for Image Registration with Time-Continuous Networks using Semigroup Regularizationcited by 1
  24. 2024CT-SDM: A Sampling Diffusion Model for Sparse-View CT Reconstruction across All Sampling Ratescited by 1
  25. 2024QID2: An Image-Conditioned Diffusion Model for Q-space Up-sampling of DWI Datacited by 1
  26. 2025Auto-regressive transformation for image alignmentcited by 1
  27. 2025Computationally Efficient Diffusion Models in Medical Imaging: A Comprehensive Reviewcited by 1
  28. 2025Dyna3DGR: 4D Cardiac Motion Tracking with Dynamic 3D Gaussian Representationcited by 1
  29. 2025Tumor Synthesis conditioned on Radiomicscited by 1
  30. 2026Trustworthy Longitudinal Brain MRI Completion: A Deformation-Based Approach with KAN-Enhanced Diffusion Modelcited by 1
  31. 2023Reconstruction of Patient-Specific Confounders in AI-based Radiologic Image Interpretation using Generative Pretrainingcited by 0
  32. 2024Key-point Guided Deformable Image Manipulation Using Diffusion Modelcited by 0
  33. 2024A Unified Deep Learning Framework for Motion Correction in Medical Imagingcited by 0
  34. 2025BOTM: Echocardiography Segmentation via Bi-directional Optimal Token Matchingcited by 0
  35. 2025MR2US-Pro: Prostate MR to Ultrasound Image Translation and Registration Based on Diffusion Modelscited by 0
  36. 2025PADReg: Physics-Aware Deformable Registration Guided by Contact Force for Ultrasound Sequencescited by 0
  37. 2025AD-DAE: Alzheimer's Disease Progression Modeling with Unpaired Longitudinal MRI using Diffusion Auto-Encoderscited by 0
  38. 2025Masked Registration and Autoencoding of CT Images for Predictive Tibia Reconstructioncited by 0

50 most cited of 57 All 57 (JSON)

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  1. 2024LDM-Morph: Latent diffusion model guided deformable image registration
  2. 2025Guiding Registration with Emergent Similarity from Pre-Trained Diffusion Models
  3. 2024Diffuse-UDA: Addressing Unsupervised Domain Adaptation in Medical Image Segmentation with Appearance and Structure Aligned Diffusion Models
  4. 2022Diffusion Deformable Model for 4D Temporal Medical Image Generation
  5. 2024VMambaMorph: a Multi-Modality Deformable Image Registration Framework based on Visual State Space Model with Cross-Scan Module
  6. 2024DiffusionBlend: Learning 3D Image Prior through Position-aware Diffusion Score Blending for 3D Computed Tomography Reconstruction
  7. 2024DiNO-Diffusion. Scaling Medical Diffusion via Self-Supervised Pre-Training
  8. 2024MedDiff-FM: A Diffusion-based Foundation Model for Versatile Medical Image Applications