# Adaptive Conditional Contrast-Agnostic Deformable Image Registration with Uncertainty Estimation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05981 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05981/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [VoxelMorph: A Learning Framework for Deformable Medical Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.05231/) (2018)
- [A Learned Representation For Artistic Style](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.07629/) (2016)
- [Emergence of Invariance and Disentanglement in Deep Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.01350/) (2017)
- [Unsupervised Learning of Probabilistic Diffeomorphic Registration for Images and Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.03545/) (2019)
- [On the uncertainty of self-supervised monocular depth estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.06209/) (2020)
- [SynthMorph: learning contrast-invariant registration without acquired images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.10282/) (2020)
- [Learn2Reg: comprehensive multi-task medical image registration challenge, dataset and evaluation in the era of deep learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.04489/) (2021)
- [On the Pitfalls of Heteroscedastic Uncertainty Estimation with Probabilistic Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09168/) (2022)
- [Unsupervised Multi-Modal Image Registration via Geometry Preserving Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08073/) (2020)
- [Unsupervised Deformable Registration for Multi-Modal Images via Disentangled Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.09331/) (2019)
- [Joint Learning of Motion Estimation and Segmentation for Cardiac MR Image Sequences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.04066/) (2018)
- [CMRxRecon: An open cardiac MRI dataset for the competition of accelerated image reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.10836/) (2023)
- [Modality-Agnostic Structural Image Representation Learning for Deformable Multi-Modality Medical Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.18933/) (2024)
- [Heteroscedastic Uncertainty Estimation Framework for Unsupervised Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00836/) (2023)
- [X-Metric: An N-Dimensional Information-Theoretic Framework for Groupwise Registration and Deep Combined Computing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01631/) (2022)
- [DISA: DIfferentiable Similarity Approximation for Universal Multimodal Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09931/) (2023)
- [ContraReg: Contrastive Learning of Multi-modality Unsupervised Deformable Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.13434/) (2022)
- [MAD: Modality Agnostic Distance Measure for Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.02875/) (2023)
- [WiNet: Wavelet-based Incremental Learning for Efficient Medical Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.13426/) (2024)
- [UTSRMorph: A Unified Transformer and Superresolution Network for Unsupervised Medical Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20348/) (2024)
- [CAR: Contrast-Agnostic Deformable Medical Image Registration with Contrast-Invariant Latent Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.05341/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deformable multi-contrast image registration is a challenging yet crucial task due to the complex, non-linear intensity relationships across different imaging contrasts. Conventional registration methods typically rely on iterative optimization of the deformation field, which is time-consuming. Although recent learning-based approaches enable fast and accurate registration during inference, their generalizability remains limited to the specific contrasts observed during training. In this work, we propose an adaptive conditional contrast-agnostic deformable image registration framework (AC-CAR) based on a random convolution-based contrast augmentation scheme. AC-CAR can generalize to arbitrary imaging contrasts without observing them during training. To encourage contrast-invariant feature learning, we propose an adaptive conditional feature modulator (ACFM) that adaptively modulates the features and the contrast-invariant latent regularization to enforce the consistency of the learned feature across different imaging contrasts. Additionally, we enable our framework to provide contrast-agnostic registration uncertainty by integrating a variance network that leverages the contrast-agnostic registration encoder to improve the trustworthiness and reliability of AC-CAR. Experimental results demonstrate that AC-CAR outperforms baseline methods in registration accuracy and exhibits superior generalization to unseen imaging contrasts. Code is available at https://github.com/Yinsong0510/AC-CAR.