CAE-BrainNet: a statistically validated class-adaptive attention ensemble model for explainable brain tumor classification from MRI
摘要
Deep learning has further accelerated progress in automated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) based classification of brain tumors, whereas prior studies have often reflected critical limitations such as narrow classification scope, insufficient Explainable Artificial Intelligence, weak statistical validation, and incomplete deployment metrics. These ultimately impede clinical trust and practical deployment. This study presents the CAE-BrainNet, a statistically validated Class-Adaptive Attention Ensemble model, which integrates representations of EfficientNetV2-M, DenseNet201, and ConvNeXt-Base dynamically, with complementary inductive biases based on different tumor morphology. Unlike uniform ensembles, a learned class-adaptive attention mechanism, parameterised by a