# MM-UNet: Meta Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.17540 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17540/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (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 24 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Mar 2025.

## 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, 24 of 24)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [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)
- [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)
- [UNETR: Transformers for 3D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.10504/) (2021)
- [Swin UNETR: Swin Transformers for Semantic Segmentation of Brain Tumors in MRI Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.01266/) (2022)
- [Long Range Arena: A Benchmark for Efficient Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.04006/) (2020)
- [HiPPO: Recurrent Memory with Optimal Polynomial Projections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.07669/) (2020)
- [Self-Supervised Pre-Training of Swin Transformers for 3D Medical Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14791/) (2021)
- [U-Mamba: Enhancing Long-range Dependency for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04722/) (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)
- [TransBTS: Multimodal Brain Tumor Segmentation Using Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.04430/) (2021)
- [LocalMamba: Visual State Space Model with Windowed Selective Scan](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09338/) (2024)
- [Swin-UMamba: Mamba-based UNet with ImageNet-based pretraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03302/) (2024)
- [3D UX-Net: A Large Kernel Volumetric ConvNet Modernizing Hierarchical Transformer for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.15076/) (2022)
- [Self-Prompt SAM: Medical Image Segmentation via Automatic Prompt SAM Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.00630/) (2025)
- [RFMedSAM 2: Automatic Prompt Refinement for Enhanced Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation with SAM 2](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.02741/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

State Space Models (SSMs) have recently demonstrated outstanding performance in long-sequence modeling, particularly in natural language processing. However, their direct application to medical image segmentation poses several challenges. SSMs, originally designed for 1D sequences, struggle with 3D spatial structures in medical images due to discontinuities introduced by flattening. Additionally, SSMs have difficulty fitting high-variance data, which is common in medical imaging. In this paper, we analyze the intrinsic limitations of SSMs in medical image segmentation and propose a unified U-shaped encoder-decoder architecture, Meta Mamba UNet (MM-UNet), designed to leverage the advantages of SSMs while mitigating their drawbacks. MM-UNet incorporates hybrid modules that integrate SSMs within residual connections, reducing variance and improving performance. Furthermore, we introduce a novel bi-directional scan order strategy to alleviate discontinuities when processing medical images. Extensive experiments on the AMOS2022 and Synapse datasets demonstrate the superiority of MM-UNet over state-of-the-art methods. MM-UNet achieves a Dice score of 91.0% on AMOS2022, surpassing nnUNet by 3.2%, and a Dice score of 87.1% on Synapse. These results confirm the effectiveness of integrating SSMs in medical image segmentation through architectural design optimizations.