# VM-UNet: Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.02491 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02491/

## Key facts

- Cited by 287 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Mamba for medical image analysis, one of 10 directions in State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba).
- Builds on 36 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Feb 2024.

## Placed in

- State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba) / [Mamba for medical image analysis](https://mlsanity.com/ssm/mamba-for-medical-image-analysis/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Layer Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.06450/) (2016)
- [SGDR: Stochastic Gradient Descent with Warm Restarts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03983/) (2016)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00396/) (2021)
- [V-Net: Fully Convolutional Neural Networks for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04797/) (2016)
- [TransUNet: Transformers Make Strong Encoders for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.04306/) (2021)
- [UNet++: A Nested U-Net Architecture for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.10165/) (2018)
- [3D U-Net: Learning Dense Volumetric Segmentation from Sparse Annotation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.06650/) (2016)
- [Attention U-Net: Learning Where to Look for the Pancreas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03999/) (2018)
- [Swin-Unet: Unet-like Pure Transformer for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05537/) (2021)
- [Vision Mamba: Efficient Visual Representation Learning with Bidirectional State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09417/) (2024)
- [VMamba: Visual State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10166/) (2024)
- [Sigmoid-Weighted Linear Units for Neural Network Function Approximation in Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.03118/) (2017)
- [Skin Lesion Analysis Toward Melanoma Detection 2018: A Challenge Hosted by the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.03368/) (2019)
- [Combining Recurrent, Convolutional, and Continuous-time Models with Linear State-Space Layers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.13985/) (2021)
- [HiPPO: Recurrent Memory with Optimal Polynomial Projections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.07669/) (2020)
- [U-Mamba: Enhancing Long-range Dependency for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04722/) (2024)
- [SegMamba: Long-range Sequential Modeling Mamba For 3D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.13560/) (2024)
- [TransFuse: Fusing Transformers and CNNs for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.08005/) (2021)
- [UCTransNet: Rethinking the Skip Connections in U-Net from a Channel-wise Perspective with Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04335/) (2021)
- [Shallow Attention Network for Polyp Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.00882/) (2021)
- [Mixed Transformer U-Net For Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.04734/) (2021)
- [MALUNet: A Multi-Attention and Light-weight UNet for Skin Lesion Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01784/) (2022)
- [EGE-UNet: an Efficient Group Enhanced UNet for skin lesion segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.08473/) (2023)
- [TransDeepLab: Convolution-Free Transformer-based DeepLab v3+ for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.00713/) (2022)
- [ISIC 2017 - Skin Lesion Analysis Towards Melanoma Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.00523/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 287)

- [LocalMamba: Visual State Space Model with Windowed Selective Scan](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09338/) (2024)
- [U-KAN Makes Strong Backbone for Medical Image Segmentation and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02918/) (2024)
- [PointMamba: A Simple State Space Model for Point Cloud Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10739/) (2024)
- [EfficientVMamba: Atrous Selective Scan for Light Weight Visual Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09977/) (2024)
- [PlainMamba: Improving Non-Hierarchical Mamba in Visual Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17695/) (2024)
- [MambaAD: Exploring State Space Models for Multi-class Unsupervised Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06564/) (2024)
- [RoboMamba: Efficient Vision-Language-Action Model for Robotic Reasoning and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04339/) (2024)
- [VL-Mamba: Exploring State Space Models for Multimodal Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.13600/) (2024)
- [The Hidden Attention of Mamba Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.01590/) (2024)
- [VmambaIR: Visual State Space Model for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11423/) (2024)
- [MedMamba: Vision Mamba for Medical Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03849/) (2024)
- [ZigMa: A DiT-style Zigzag Mamba Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.13802/) (2024)
- [FusionMamba: Dynamic Feature Enhancement for Multimodal Image Fusion with Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09498/) (2024)
- [Sigma: Siamese Mamba Network for Multi-Modal Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04256/) (2024)
- [Fusion-Mamba for Cross-modality Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09146/) (2024)
- [Point Cloud Mamba: Point Cloud Learning via State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00762/) (2024)
- [Mamba-360: Survey of State Space Models as Transformer Alternative for Long Sequence Modelling: Methods, Applications, and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.16112/) (2024)
- [Multi-Scale VMamba: Hierarchy in Hierarchy Visual State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14174/) (2024)
- [MiM-ISTD: Mamba-in-Mamba for Efficient Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02148/) (2024)
- [State Space Model for New-Generation Network Alternative to Transformers: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09516/) (2024)
- [Retinexmamba: Retinex-based Mamba for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.03349/) (2024)
- [Gamba: Marry Gaussian Splatting with Mamba for single view 3D reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18795/) (2024)
- [LightM-UNet: Mamba Assists in Lightweight UNet for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05246/) (2024)
- [Vision Mamba: A Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.04404/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Visual Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15956/) (2024)
- [CDMamba: Incorporating Local Clues into Mamba for Remote Sensing Image Binary Change Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04207/) (2024)
- [UltraLight VM-UNet: Parallel Vision Mamba Significantly Reduces Parameters for Skin Lesion Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.20035/) (2024)
- [MambaHSI: Spatial-Spectral Mamba for Hyperspectral Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.04944/) (2025)
- [Visual Mamba: A Survey and New Outlooks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18861/) (2024)
- [VM-UNET-V2 Rethinking Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09157/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In the realm of medical image segmentation, both CNN-based and Transformer-based models have been extensively explored. However, CNNs exhibit limitations in long-range modeling capabilities, whereas Transformers are hampered by their quadratic computational complexity. Recently, State Space Models (SSMs), exemplified by Mamba, have emerged as a promising approach. They not only excel in modeling long-range interactions but also maintain a linear computational complexity. In this paper, leveraging state space models, we propose a U-shape architecture model for medical image segmentation, named Vision Mamba UNet (VM-UNet). Specifically, the Visual State Space (VSS) block is introduced as the foundation block to capture extensive contextual information, and an asymmetrical encoder-decoder structure is constructed with fewer convolution layers to save calculation cost. We conduct comprehensive experiments on the ISIC17, ISIC18, and Synapse datasets, and the results indicate that VM-UNet performs competitively in medical image segmentation tasks. To our best knowledge, this is the first medical image segmentation model constructed based on the pure SSM-based model. We aim to establish a baseline and provide valuable insights for the future development of more efficient and effective SSM-based segmentation systems. Our code is available at https://github.com/JCruan519/VM-UNet.