Fuzzy c-means(FCM) clustering algorithm has been widely used in automated image segmentation.However,the conventional FCM algorithm is noise sensitive because of not taking into account the spatial informations.To overcome the above problem,a novel modified FCM algorithm for image segmentation is presented in this paper.The algorithm is formulated by incorporating the spatial neighborhood into the standard FCM clustering algorithm.A prior probability is given to indicate the spatial influence of the neighboring pixels on the centre pixel,which is automatically determined in the implementation of the algorithm by the fuzzy memberships of the neighboring pixels.The new fuzzy membership of the current pixel is then recounted with the obtained probability.The algorithm is initialized by a statistical histogram based on FCM algorithm,which can speed up the convergence of the algorithm.The new algorithm is applied to synthetic and real images and is shown to be effective and more robust to noise and other artifacts than the standard FCM algorithm.