Sex classification of 3D skull images using deep neural networks

Abstract

Determining the fundamental characteristics that define a face as "feminine" or "masculine" has long fascinated anatomists and plastic surgeons, particularly those involved in aesthetic and gender-affirming surgery. Previous studies in this area have relied on manual measurements, comparative anatomy, and heuristic landmark-based feature extraction. In this study, we collected retrospectively at Cedars Sinai Medical Center (CSMC) a dataset of 98 skull samples, which is the first dataset of this kind of 3D medical imaging. We then evaluated the accuracy of multiple deep learning neural network architectures on sex classification with this dataset. Specifically, we evaluated methods representing three different 3D data modeling approaches: Resnet3D, PointNet++, and MeshNet. Despite the limited number of imaging samples, our testing results show that all three approaches achieve AUC scores above 0.9 after convergence. PointNet++ exhibits the highest accuracy, while MeshNet has the lowest. Our findings suggest that accuracy is not solely dependent on the sparsity of data representation but also on the architecture design, with MeshNet's lower accuracy likely due to the lack of a hierarchical structure for progressive data abstraction. Furthermore, we studied a problem related to sex determination, which is the analysis of the various morphological features that affect sex classification. We proposed and developed a new method based on morphological gradients to visualize features that influence model decision making. The method based on morphological gradients is an alternative to the standard saliency map, and the new method provides better visualization of feature importance. Our study is the first to develop and evaluate deep learning models for analyzing 3D facial skull images to identify imaging feature differences between individuals assigned male or female at birth. These findings may be useful for planning and evaluating craniofacial surgery, particularly gender-affirming procedures, such as facial feminization surgery.