# Unsupervised Multimodal 3D Medical Image Registration with Multilevel Correlation Balanced Optimization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.05040 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.05040/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 12 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Sep 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [An Unsupervised Learning Model for Deformable Medical Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.02604/) (2018)
- [Fast 3D registration with accurate optimisation and little learning for Learn2Reg 2021](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03053/) (2021)
- [Spatially Covariant Image Registration with Text Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15607/) (2023)
- [A Deep Discontinuity-Preserving Image Registration Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.04440/) (2021)
- [MemWarp: Discontinuity-Preserving Cardiac Registration with Memorized Anatomical Filters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08093/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Unsupervised MR-US Multimodal Image Registration with Multilevel Correlation Pyramidal Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06288/) (2026)
- [A Systematic Benchmark of Intraoperative Ultrasound-to-MR Synthesis for Brain Tumour Surgery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.00630/) (2026)
- [Data-driven registration and modeling of brain deformation for image-guided neurosurgery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.10155/) (2026)
- [What neurosurgeons need to see: synthetic intra-operative MRI from ultrasound for brain-shift compensation in brain tumour surgery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.07658/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Surgical navigation based on multimodal image registration has played a significant role in providing intraoperative guidance to surgeons by showing the relative position of the target area to critical anatomical structures during surgery. However, due to the differences between multimodal images and intraoperative image deformation caused by tissue displacement and removal during surgery, effective registration of preoperative and intraoperative multimodal images faces significant challenges. To address the multimodal image registration challenges in Learn2Reg 2024, an unsupervised multimodal medical image registration method based on multilevel correlation balanced optimization (MCBO) is designed to solve these problems. First, the features of each modality are extracted based on the modality independent neighborhood descriptor, and the multimodal images are mapped to the feature space. Second, a multilevel pyramidal fusion optimization mechanism is designed to achieve global optimization and local detail complementation of the deformation field through dense correlation analysis and weight-balanced coupled convex optimization for input features at different scales. For preoperative medical images in different modalities, the alignment and stacking of valid information between different modalities is achieved by the maximum fusion between deformation fields. Our method focuses on the ReMIND2Reg task in Learn2Reg 2024, and to verify the generality of the method, we also tested it on the COMULIS3DCLEM task. Based on the results, our method achieved second place in the validation of both two tasks. The code is available at https://github.com/wjiazheng/MCBO.