# Decoupling Parcellation from Classification: Systematic Benchmark of Fast Brain Segmentation Methods for Alzheimer's Disease Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.16039 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.16039/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [XGBoost: A Scalable Tree Boosting System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.02754/) (2016)
- [Large Language Models Encode Clinical Knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.13138/) (2022)
- [TabLLM: Few-shot Classification of Tabular Data with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.10723/) (2022)
- [Automated brain extraction of multi-sequence MRI using artificial neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.11341/) (2019)
- [FastSurfer -- A fast and accurate deep learning based neuroimaging pipeline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.03866/) (2019)
- [Convolutional Neural Networks for Classification of Alzheimer's Disease: Overview and Reproducible Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07773/) (2019)
- [Multi-Atlas Segmentation of Biomedical Images: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.3421/) (2014)
- [Joint super-resolution and synthesis of 1 mm isotropic MP-RAGE volumes from clinical MRI exams with scans of different orientation, resolution and contrast](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.13340/) (2020)
- [QuickNAT: A Fully Convolutional Network for Quick and Accurate Segmentation of Neuroanatomy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.04161/) (2018)
- [Computational Pathology at Health System Scale -- Self-Supervised Foundation Models from Three Billion Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07033/) (2023)
- [Superficial White Matter Analysis: An Efficient Point-cloud-based Deep Learning Framework with Supervised Contrastive Learning for Consistent Tractography Parcellation across Populations and dMRI Acquisitions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.08975/) (2022)
- [BDEC:Brain Deep Embedded Clustering model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09984/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Brain parcellation and classification are typically evaluated in isolation, yet downstream AD detection performance depends on their interaction. We decouple these components and systematically benchmark fast deep learning parcellation methods (SynthSeg+, OpenMAP-T1) against the FreeSurfer (FS-HV) clinical baseline through down- stream AD classification on OASIS-1. Our factorial design evaluates three parcellation methods, two volumetry strategies (hard vs. soft), and four classifier paradigms (clinical thresholds, supervised feedforward networks, ensemble methods, and foundation models with zero/few-shot prompting), with all results quantified using BCa Bootstrap 95% confidence intervals.