# A Survey on Visual Mamba

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.15956 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15956/

## Key facts

- Cited by 50 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Vision Mamba backbones, one of 10 directions in State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba).
- Builds on 88 of its 101 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Apr 2024.

## Placed in

- State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba) / [Vision Mamba backbones](https://mlsanity.com/ssm/vision-mamba-backbones/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 88)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [Neural Machine Translation by Jointly Learning to Align and Translate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.0473/) (2014)
- [Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELUs)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.08415/) (2016)
- [Transformers are RNNs: Fast Autoregressive Transformers with Linear Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.16236/) (2020)
- [Convolutional LSTM Network: A Machine Learning Approach for Precipitation Nowcasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.04214/) (2015)
- [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)
- [RWKV: Reinventing RNNs for the Transformer Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13048/) (2023)
- [Retentive Network: A Successor to Transformer for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.08621/) (2023)
- [Hungry Hungry Hippos: Towards Language Modeling with State Space Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.14052/) (2022)
- [U-Mamba: Enhancing Long-range Dependency for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04722/) (2024)
- [Jamba: A Hybrid Transformer-Mamba Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.19887/) (2024)
- [Hyena Hierarchy: Towards Larger Convolutional Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10866/) (2023)
- [MambaIR: A Simple Baseline for Image Restoration with State-Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15648/) (2024)
- [VideoMamba: State Space Model for Efficient Video Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06977/) (2024)
- [VM-UNet: Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02491/) (2024)
- [SegMamba: Long-range Sequential Modeling Mamba For 3D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.13560/) (2024)
- [LocalMamba: Visual State Space Model with Windowed Selective Scan](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09338/) (2024)
- [A Decomposable Attention Model for Natural Language Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.01933/) (2016)
- [Swin-UMamba: Mamba-based UNet with ImageNet-based pretraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03302/) (2024)
- [Searching for Activation Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.05941/) (2017)
- [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)
- [Mamba-UNet: UNet-Like Pure Visual Mamba for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05079/) (2024)
- [CKConv: Continuous Kernel Convolution For Sequential Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02611/) (2021)
- [ChangeMamba: Remote Sensing Change Detection With Spatiotemporal State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.03425/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 50)

- [MambaOut: Do We Really Need Mamba for Vision?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.07992/) (2024)
- [Vision Mamba: A Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.04404/) (2024)
- [A Survey of Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01129/) (2024)
- [Matten: Video Generation with Mamba-Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.03025/) (2024)
- [Rethinking Scanning Strategies with Vision Mamba in Semantic Segmentation of Remote Sensing Imagery: An Experimental Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.08493/) (2024)
- [Serp-Mamba: Advancing High-Resolution Retinal Vessel Segmentation with Selective State-Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.04356/) (2024)
- [Mamba-in-Mamba: Centralized Mamba-Cross-Scan in Tokenized Mamba Model for Hyperspectral Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12003/) (2024)
- [LLEMamba: Low-Light Enhancement via Relighting-Guided Mamba with Deep Unfolding Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01028/) (2024)
- [IRSRMamba: Infrared Image Super-Resolution via Mamba-based Wavelet Transform Feature Modulation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.09873/) (2024)
- [Scalable Visual State Space Model with Fractal Scanning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14480/) (2024)
- [Snakes and Ladders: Two Steps Up for VideoMamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.19006/) (2024)
- [Multi-head Spatial-Spectral Mamba for Hyperspectral Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01224/) (2024)
- [Advancing Intelligent Sequence Modeling: Evolution, Trade-offs, and Applications of State-Space Architectures from S4 to Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18970/) (2025)
- [Learning Phase Distortion with Selective State Space Models for Video Turbulence Mitigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.02697/) (2025)
- [A Survey on Mamba Architecture for Vision Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07161/) (2025)
- [Block-Biased Mamba for Long-Range Sequence Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09022/) (2025)
- [Integration of Mamba and Transformer -- MAT for Long-Short Range Time Series Forecasting with Application to Weather Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.08530/) (2024)
- [TransMamba: A Sequence-Level Hybrid Transformer-Mamba Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.24067/) (2025)
- [MambaST: A Plug-and-Play Cross-Spectral Spatial-Temporal Fuser for Efficient Pedestrian Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01037/) (2024)
- [A Survey of RWKV](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14847/) (2024)
- [Vision Mamba in Remote Sensing: A Comprehensive Survey of Techniques, Applications and Outlook](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.00630/) (2025)
- [UNetMamba: An Efficient UNet-Like Mamba for Semantic Segmentation of High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.11545/) (2024)
- [TRecViT: A Recurrent Video Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14294/) (2024)
- [CAMS: Convolution and Attention-Free Mamba-based Cardiac Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.05786/) (2024)
- [MambaXCTrack: Mamba-based Tracker with SSM Cross-correlation and Motion Prompt for Ultrasound Needle Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.08395/) (2024)
- [Mamba-CNN: A Hybrid Architecture for Efficient and Accurate Facial Beauty Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01431/) (2025)
- [HiFi-Mamba: Dual-Stream W-Laplacian Enhanced Mamba for High-Fidelity MRI Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.09179/) (2025)
- [EDMB: Edge Detector with Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.04846/) (2025)
- [MambaFlow: A Mamba-Centric Architecture for End-to-End Optical Flow Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07046/) (2025)
- [MrTrack: Register Mamba for Needle Tracking with Rapid Reciprocating Motion during Ultrasound-Guided Aspiration Biopsy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09450/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

State space models (SSMs) with selection mechanisms and hardware-aware architectures, namely Mamba, have recently demonstrated significant promise in long-sequence modeling. Since the self-attention mechanism in transformers has quadratic complexity with image size and increasing computational demands, the researchers are now exploring how to adapt Mamba for computer vision tasks. This paper is the first comprehensive survey aiming to provide an in-depth analysis of Mamba models in the field of computer vision. It begins by exploring the foundational concepts contributing to Mamba's success, including the state space model framework, selection mechanisms, and hardware-aware design. Next, we review these vision mamba models by categorizing them into foundational ones and enhancing them with techniques such as convolution, recurrence, and attention to improve their sophistication. We further delve into the widespread applications of Mamba in vision tasks, which include their use as a backbone in various levels of vision processing. This encompasses general visual tasks, Medical visual tasks (e.g., 2D / 3D segmentation, classification, and image registration, etc.), and Remote Sensing visual tasks. We specially introduce general visual tasks from two levels: High/Mid-level vision (e.g., Object detection, Segmentation, Video classification, etc.) and Low-level vision (e.g., Image super-resolution, Image restoration, Visual generation, etc.). We hope this endeavor will spark additional interest within the community to address current challenges and further apply Mamba models in computer vision.