# ViM-UNet: Vision Mamba for Biomedical Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.07705 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07705/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 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 8 of its 19 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Apr 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, 8 of 8)

- [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)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00396/) (2021)
- [UNETR: Transformers for 3D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.10504/) (2021)
- [U-Mamba: Enhancing Long-range Dependency for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04722/) (2024)
- [Cell Detection with Star-convex Polygons](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.03535/) (2018)
- [The Multi-modality Cell Segmentation Challenge: Towards Universal Solutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.05864/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [State Space Model for New-Generation Network Alternative to Transformers: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09516/) (2024)
- [Visual Mamba: A Survey and New Outlooks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18861/) (2024)
- [Mamba in Vision: A Comprehensive Survey of Techniques and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03105/) (2024)
- [A Comprehensive Survey of Mamba Architectures for Medical Image Analysis: Classification, Segmentation, Restoration and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02362/) (2024)
- [Mamba-Sea: A Mamba-based Framework with Global-to-Local Sequence Augmentation for Generalizable Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.17515/) (2025)
- [AI-driven View Guidance System in Intra-cardiac Echocardiography Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.16898/) (2024)
- [MLLA-UNet: Mamba-like Linear Attention in an Efficient U-Shape Model for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.23738/) (2024)
- [MS-Temba: Multi-Scale Temporal Mamba for Understanding Long Untrimmed Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.06138/) (2025)
- [SkelMamba: A State Space Model for Efficient Skeleton Action Recognition of Neurological Disorders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.19544/) (2024)
- [NeuroMamba: Multi-Perspective Feature Interaction with Visual Mamba for Neuron Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.15929/) (2026)
- [APRIL-MedSeg: A Modular Medical Image Segmentation Toolbox Embracing Modern Paradigms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.30577/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

CNNs, most notably the UNet, are the default architecture for biomedical segmentation. Transformer-based approaches, such as UNETR, have been proposed to replace them, benefiting from a global field of view, but suffering from larger runtimes and higher parameter counts. The recent Vision Mamba architecture offers a compelling alternative to transformers, also providing a global field of view, but at higher efficiency. Here, we introduce ViM-UNet, a novel segmentation architecture based on it and compare it to UNet and UNETR for two challenging microscopy instance segmentation tasks. We find that it performs similarly or better than UNet, depending on the task, and outperforms UNETR while being more efficient. Our code is open source and documented at https://github.com/constantinpape/torch-em/blob/main/vimunet.md.