mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

UltraLight VM-UNet: Parallel Vision Mamba Significantly Reduces Parameters for Skin Lesion Segmentation

arXiv 2403.20035 ↗First posted 29 Mar 2024eess.IV cs.CVcited by 45

On the map: State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba) → Mamba for medical image analysis

Abstract (arXiv)

Traditionally for improving the segmentation performance of models, most approaches prefer to use adding more complex modules. And this is not suitable for the medical field, especially for mobile medical devices, where computationally loaded models are not suitable for real clinical environments due to computational resource constraints. Recently, state-space models (SSMs), represented by Mamba, have become a strong competitor to traditional CNNs and Transformers. In this paper, we deeply explore the key elements of parameter influence in Mamba and propose an UltraLight Vision Mamba UNet (UltraLight VM-UNet) based on this. Specifically, we propose a method for processing features in parallel Vision Mamba, named PVM Layer, which achieves excellent performance with the lowest computational load while keeping the overall number of processing channels constant. We conducted comparisons and ablation experiments with several state-of-the-art lightweight models on three skin lesion public datasets and demonstrated that the UltraLight VM-UNet exhibits the same strong performance competitiveness with parameters of only 0.049M and GFLOPs of 0.060. In addition, this study deeply explores the key elements of parameter influence in Mamba, which will lay a theoretical foundation for Mamba to possibly become a new mainstream module for lightweighting in the future. The code is available from https://github.com/wurenkai/UltraLight-VM-UNet .

Key facts. Cited by 45 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Mamba for medical image analysis, one of 10 directions in State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba). Builds on 30 of its 47 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Mar 2024.

Builds on

30 of 47 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024H-vmunet: High-order Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation20 Mar
  2. 2024VM-UNET-V2 Rethinking Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation14 Mar
  3. 2024LightM-UNet: Mamba Assists in Lightweight UNet for Medical Image Segmentation8 Mar
  4. 2024VM-UNet: Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation4 Feb
  5. 2024U-Mamba: Enhancing Long-range Dependency for Biomedical Image Segmentation9 Jan

Other references · 25

  1. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,604
  2. 2015Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shiftcited by 6,979
  3. 2015Rethinking the Inception Architecture for Computer Visioncited by 5,451
  4. 2014Fully Convolutional Networks for Semantic Segmentationcited by 4,845
  5. 2023Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spacescited by 4,616
  6. 2014Going Deeper with Convolutionscited by 4,231
  7. 2022A ConvNet for the 2020scited by 3,545
  8. 2016Inception-v4, Inception-ResNet and the Impact of Residual Connections on Learningcited by 1,509
  9. 2018Attention U-Net: Learning Where to Look for the Pancreascited by 1,420
  10. 2021Swin-Unet: Unet-like Pure Transformer for Medical Image Segmentationcited by 1,218
  11. 2024Vision Mamba: Efficient Visual Representation Learning with Bidirectional State Space Modelcited by 1,051
  12. 2024VMamba: Visual State Space Modelcited by 955
13 more
  1. 2021UNETR: Transformers for 3D Medical Image Segmentationcited by 954
  2. 2017Sigmoid-Weighted Linear Units for Neural Network Function Approximation in Reinforcement Learningcited by 935
  3. 2022Swin UNETR: Swin Transformers for Semantic Segmentation of Brain Tumors in MRI Imagescited by 823
  4. 2019Skin Lesion Analysis Toward Melanoma Detection 2018: A Challenge Hosted by the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC)cited by 657
  5. 2021The Medical Segmentation Decathloncited by 620
  6. 2017Skin Lesion Analysis Toward Melanoma Detection: A Challenge at the 2017 International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), Hosted by the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC)cited by 549
  7. 2021Global Filter Networks for Image Classificationcited by 257
  8. 2022HorNet: Efficient High-Order Spatial Interactions with Recursive Gated Convolutionscited by 103
  9. 2022MALUNet: A Multi-Attention and Light-weight UNet for Skin Lesion Segmentationcited by 59
  10. 2023EGE-UNet: an Efficient Group Enhanced UNet for skin lesion segmentationcited by 53
  11. 2023Devil is in Channels: Contrastive Single Domain Generalization for Medical Image Segmentationcited by 30
  12. 2022Attention Swin U-Net: Cross-Contextual Attention Mechanism for Skin Lesion Segmentationcited by 21
  13. 2023DermoSegDiff: A Boundary-aware Segmentation Diffusion Model for Skin Lesion Delineationcited by 12

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 16; 2025: 17; 2026: 12.

45 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2024State Space Model for New-Generation Network Alternative to Transformers: A Surveycited by 59
  2. 2024Vision Mamba: A Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomycited by 53
  3. 2024A Survey on Visual Mambacited by 50
  4. 2024MemoryMamba: Memory-Augmented State Space Model for Defect Recognitioncited by 24
  5. 2024DVMSR: Distillated Vision Mamba for Efficient Super-Resolutioncited by 23
  6. 2024Mamba in Vision: A Comprehensive Survey of Techniques and Applicationscited by 18
  7. 2024A Comprehensive Survey of Mamba Architectures for Medical Image Analysis: Classification, Segmentation, Restoration and Beyondcited by 16
  8. 2024xLSTM-UNet can be an Effective 2D & 3D Medical Image Segmentation Backbone with Vision-LSTM (ViL) better than its Mamba Counterpartcited by 12
  9. 2025WeatherGen: A Unified Diverse Weather Generator for LiDAR Point Clouds via Spider Mamba Diffusioncited by 12
  10. 2025MK-UNet: Multi-kernel Lightweight CNN for Medical Image Segmentationcited by 12
  11. 2024SliceMamba with Neural Architecture Search for Medical Image Segmentationcited by 11
  12. 2024LFMamba: Light Field Image Super-Resolution with State Space Modelcited by 7
33 more
  1. 2024MambaSCI: Efficient Mamba-UNet for Quad-Bayer Patterned Video Snapshot Compressive Imagingcited by 7
  2. 2025Mamba-Sea: A Mamba-based Framework with Global-to-Local Sequence Augmentation for Generalizable Medical Image Segmentationcited by 7
  3. 2024AC-MAMBASEG: An adaptive convolution and Mamba-based architecture for enhanced skin lesion segmentationcited by 6
  4. 2024MUCM-Net: A Mamba Powered UCM-Net for Skin Lesion Segmentationcited by 5
  5. 2024SkinMamba: A Precision Skin Lesion Segmentation Architecture with Cross-Scale Global State Modeling and Frequency Boundary Guidancecited by 4
  6. 2026MambaLiteUNet: Cross-Gated Adaptive Feature Fusion for Robust Skin Lesion Segmentationcited by 4
  7. 2025A Reverse Mamba Attention Network for Pathological Liver Segmentationcited by 3
  8. 2025FuseUNet: A Multi-Scale Feature Fusion Method for U-like Networkscited by 3
  9. 2025UltraLBM-UNet: Ultralight Bidirectional Mamba-based Model for Skin Lesion Segmentationcited by 3
  10. 2024MHS-VM: Multi-Head Scanning in Parallel Subspaces for Vision Mambacited by 2
  11. 2025EDMB: Edge Detector with Mambacited by 2
  12. 2025UltraLight Med-Vision Mamba for Classification of Neoplastic Progression in Tubular Adenomascited by 2
  13. 2025EEMS: Edge-Prompt Enhanced Medical Image Segmentation Based on Learnable Gating Mechanismcited by 2
  14. 2025BS-Mamba for Black-Soil Area Detection On the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateaucited by 1
  15. 2025ASP-VMUNet: Atrous Shifted Parallel Vision Mamba U-Net for Skin Lesion Segmentationcited by 1
  16. 2025Privacy-enhancing Sclera Segmentation Benchmarking Competition: SSBC 2025cited by 1
  17. 2025CD-Mamba: Cloud detection with long-range spatial dependency modelingcited by 1
  18. 2025CellMamba: Adaptive Mamba for Accurate and Efficient Cell Detectioncited by 1
  19. 2026Efficient Deep Learning for Medical Imaging: Bridging the Gap Between High-Performance AI and Clinical Deploymentcited by 1
  20. 2024When Mamba Meets xLSTM: An Efficient and Precise Method with the xLSTM-VMUNet Model for Skin lesion Segmentationcited by 0
  21. 2025Simple is what you need for efficient and accurate medical image segmentationcited by 0
  22. 2025Rethinking Convergence in Deep Learning: The Predictive-Corrective Paradigm for Anatomy-Informed Brain MRI Segmentationcited by 0
  23. 2025WDFFU-Mamba: A Wavelet-guided Dual-attention Feature Fusion Mamba for Breast Tumor Segmentation in Ultrasound Imagescited by 0
  24. 2026XtraLight-MedMamba for Classification of Neoplastic Tubular Adenomascited by 0
  25. 2026XAI-CLIP: ROI-Guided Perturbation Framework for Explainable Medical Image Segmentation in Multimodal Vision-Language Modelscited by 0
  26. 2026VFGS-Net: Frequency-Guided State-Space Learning for Topology-Preserving Retinal Vessel Segmentationcited by 0
  27. 2026SpectralMamba-UNet: Frequency-Disentangled State Space Modeling for Texture-Structure Consistent Medical Image Segmentationcited by 0
  28. 2026CS-MUNet: A Channel-Spatial Dual-Stream Mamba Network for Multi-Organ Segmentationcited by 0
  29. 20263DGS3: Joint Super Sampling and Frame Interpolation for Real-Time Large-Scale 3DGS Renderingcited by 0
  30. 2026APRIL-MedSeg: A Modular Medical Image Segmentation Toolbox Embracing Modern Paradigmscited by 0
  31. 2026MaLViL: Multi-axis Low-rank Vision-LSTM for Medical Image Segmentationcited by 0
  32. 2026FU-Mamba: A Frequency-Enhanced Dynamic Scanning Framework for Oralscan Image Segmentationcited by 0
  33. 2026GAD-MambaUNet: Direction-Group Mamba with Gradient-Adaptive DINOv3 Distillation for Lightweight Medical Image Segmentationcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024MSVM-UNet: Multi-Scale Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation
  2. 2024MambaU-Lite: A Lightweight Model based on Mamba and Integrated Channel-Spatial Attention for Skin Lesion Segmentation
  3. 2024Mamba-UNet: UNet-Like Pure Visual Mamba for Medical Image Segmentation
  4. 2024Rotate to Scan: UNet-like Mamba with Triplet SSM Module for Medical Image Segmentation
  5. 2024LoG-VMamba: Local-Global Vision Mamba for Medical Image Segmentation
  6. 2026DSVM-UNet : Enhancing VM-UNet with Dual Self-distillation for Medical Image Segmentation
  7. 2024HMT-UNet: A hybird Mamba-Transformer Vision UNet for Medical Image Segmentation
  8. 2024LKM-UNet: Large Kernel Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation