Neural Dynamic Network for Brain Tumor Classification: An Attention-Based Feature Selection Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31154/cogito.v11i2.989.430-446Keywords:
Neural Dynamic Network (NDN), Grad-CAM, Brain Tumor Classification, Attention-Based MechanismAbstract
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) plays a vital role in the early detection of brain tumors. However, standard Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models often struggle to extract truly relevant features from complex MRI structures. This limitation creates a gap in achieving robust and clinically interpretable classifications, as feature redundancy and weak attention toward tumor-specific regions may reduce diagnostic reliability. To address this gap, this study introduces a Neural Dynamic Network (NDN) that integrates EfficientNetV2S with a dynamic attention-based mechanism to adaptively highlight informative features while suppressing noise. The proposed model was evaluated using a 5-fold cross-validation scheme and tested on unseen data. Compared with the baseline CNN, the NDN consistently demonstrated higher accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score across folds and final testing, reflecting improved robustness and balanced sensitivity. NDN yielded significant improvements, with the 5-fold validation averaging an accuracy of 88.44%, a precision of 87.84%, a recall of 87.88%, and an F1-score of 87.82%. Beyond numerical performance, interpretability analysis utilizing Grad-CAM demonstrated that NDN generates more concentrated and clinically consistent heatmaps. In contrast, the baseline CNN produced dispersed activations that exhibited less alignment with tumor regions. Overall, the findings confirm that incorporating a dynamic attention-based mechanism substantially enhances both feature selection and visual interpretability. This makes the NDN architecture more reliable for MRI-based brain tumor classification and highly suitable as a decision-support tool in clinical workflows.References
Filho M Adalberto et al., “Cancers of the brain and central nervous system: global patterns and trends in incidence.,” J Neurooncol, vol. 172, pp. 567–578, May 2025, doi: 10.1007/s11060-025-04944-y.
M. S. Hasibuan, “Integrating Convolutional Neural Networks into Mobile Health: A Study on Lung Disease Detection,” Journal of Applied Data Sciences, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 1495–1503, Sep. 2025, doi: 10.47738/jads.v6i3.660.
A. ul Haq, J. P. Li, S. Khan, M. A. Alshara, R. M. Alotaibi, and C. Mawuli, “DACBT: deep learning approach for classification of brain tumors using MRI data in IoT healthcare environment,” Sci Rep, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 15331, Sep. 2022, doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-19465-1.
A. Alshuhail et al., “Refining neural network algorithms for accurate brain tumor classification in MRI imagery,” BMC Med Imaging, vol. 24, no. 1, p. 118, May 2024, doi: 10.1186/s12880-024-01285-6.
M. M. Zahoor et al., “Brain Tumor MRI Classification Using a Novel Deep Residual and Regional CNN,” Biomedicines, vol. 12, no. 7, p. 1395, Jun. 2024, doi: 10.3390/biomedicines12071395.
R. Khan et al., “High-precision brain tumor classification from MRI images using an advanced hybrid deep learning method with minimal radiation exposure,” J Radiat Res Appl Sci, vol. 18, no. 4, p. 101858, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.jrras.2025.101858.
B. M. Jebin, S. I. Shyla, K. N. Sujantha Bel, and C. J. Jeba Sheela, “Brain tumor detection and classification using u-net and CNN with brain texture pattern analysis,” Biomed Signal Process Control, vol. 110, p. 108156, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.bspc.2025.108156.
A. J. Aiya et al., “Optimized deep learning for brain tumor detection: a hybrid approach with attention mechanisms and clinical explainability,” Sci Rep, vol. 15, no. 1, p. 31386, Aug. 2025, doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-04591-3.
H. Fan et al., “Artificial intelligence-based MRI radiomics and radiogenomics in glioma,” Cancer Imaging, vol. 24, no. 1, p. 36, Mar. 2024, doi: 10.1186/s40644-024-00682-y.
Y. Wang, Z. Hu, and H. Wang, “The clinical implications and interpretability of computational medical imaging (radiomics) in brain tumors,” Insights Imaging, vol. 16, no. 1, p. 77, Mar. 2025, doi: 10.1186/s13244-025-01950-6.
L. Sánchez-Moreno, A. Perez-Peña, L. Duran-Lopez, and J. P. Dominguez-Morales, “Ensemble-based Convolutional Neural Networks for brain tumor classification in MRI: Enhancing accuracy and interpretability using explainable AI,” Comput Biol Med, vol. 195, p. 110555, Sep. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2025.110555.
A. Agrawal and J. Chaki, “CerebralNet meets Explainable AI: Brain tumor detection and classification with probabilistic augmentation and a deep learning approach,” Biomed Signal Process Control, vol. 110, p. 108210, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.bspc.2025.108210.
F. Yuan, Z. Tang, C. Wang, Q. Huang, and J. Shi, “A multiple gated boosting network for multi‐organ medical image segmentation,” IET Image Process, vol. 17, no. 10, pp. 3028–3039, Aug. 2023, doi: 10.1049/ipr2.12852.
R. R. Selvaraju, A. Das, R. Vedantam, M. Cogswell, D. Parikh, and D. Batra, “Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-Based Localization,” Int J Comput Vis, vol. 128, pp. 336–359, 2016, [Online]. Available: https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:15019293
M. M. M, M. T. R, V. K. V, and S. Guluwadi, “Enhancing brain tumor detection in MRI images through explainable AI using Grad-CAM with Resnet 50,” BMC Med Imaging, vol. 24, no. 1, p. 107, May 2024, doi: 10.1186/s12880-024-01292-7.
I. Pacal, O. Celik, B. Bayram, and A. Cunha, “Enhancing EfficientNetv2 with global and efficient channel attention mechanisms for accurate MRI-Based brain tumor classification,” Cluster Comput, vol. 27, no. 8, pp. 11187–11212, Nov. 2024, doi: 10.1007/s10586-024-04532-1.
Z. Chaoyang, S. Shibao, H. Wenmao, and Z. Pengcheng, “FDR-TransUNet: A novel encoder-decoder architecture with vision transformer for improved medical image segmentation,” Comput Biol Med, vol. 169, p. 107858, Feb. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2023.107858.
S. Iftikhar, N. Anjum, A. B. Siddiqui, M. Ur Rehman, and N. Ramzan, “Explainable CNN for brain tumor detection and classification through XAI based key features identification,” Brain Inform, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 10, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.1186/s40708-025-00257-y.
S. Muksimova, S. Umirzakova, N. Iskhakova, A. Khaitov, and Y. I. Cho, “Advanced convolutional neural network with attention mechanism for Alzheimer’s disease classification using MRI,” Comput Biol Med, vol. 190, p. 110095, May 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2025.110095.
Msoud Nickparvar, “Brain Tumor MRI Dataset [Data set],” 2021, Kaggle: 1. doi: doi.org/10.34740/kaggle/dsv/2645886.
A. S. H. Emran, H. Akter, and A. Al Shiam, “Brain Tumor MRI Dataset,” 2025, Mendeley Data:
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 CogITo Smart Journal

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).


