Dataset Information

Neuron Image Analyzer: Automated and Accurate Extraction of Neuronal Data from Low Quality Images.

ABSTRACT: Image analysis software is an essential tool used in neuroscience and neural engineering to evaluate changes in neuronal structure following extracellular stimuli. Both manual and automated methods in current use are severely inadequate at detecting and quantifying changes in neuronal morphology when the images analyzed have a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This inadequacy derives from the fact that these methods often include data from non-neuronal structures or artifacts by simply tracing pixels with high intensity. In this paper, we describe Neuron Image Analyzer (NIA), a novel algorithm that overcomes these inadequacies by employing Laplacian of Gaussian filter and graphical models (i.e., Hidden Markov Model, Fully Connected Chain Model) to specifically extract relational pixel information corresponding to neuronal structures (i.e., soma, neurite). As such, NIA that is based on vector representation is less likely to detect false signals (i.e., non-neuronal structures) or generate artifact signals (i.e., deformation of original structures) than current image analysis algorithms that are based on raster representation. We demonstrate that NIA enables precise quantification of neuronal processes (e.g., length and orientation of neurites) in low quality images with a significant increase in the accuracy of detecting neuronal changes post-stimulation.

SUBMITTER: Kim KM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4655406 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Neuron Image Analyzer: Automated and Accurate Extraction of Neuronal Data from Low Quality Images.

Kim Kwang-Min KM Son Kilho K Palmore G Tayhas R GT

Scientific reports 20151123

Image analysis software is an essential tool used in neuroscience and neural engineering to evaluate changes in neuronal structure following extracellular stimuli. Both manual and automated methods in current use are severely inadequate at detecting and quantifying changes in neuronal morphology when the images analyzed have a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This inadequacy derives from the fact that these methods often include data from non-neuronal structures or artifacts by simply tracing pi ...[more]

PMID: 26593337

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Project description:Brain extraction from 3D medical images is a common pre-processing step. A variety of approaches exist, but they are frequently only designed to perform brain extraction from images without strong pathologies. Extracting the brain from images exhibiting strong pathologies, for example, the presence of a brain tumor or of a traumatic brain injury (TBI), is challenging. In such cases, tissue appearance may substantially deviate from normal tissue appearance and hence violates algorithmic assumptions for standard approaches to brain extraction; consequently, the brain may not be correctly extracted. This paper proposes a brain extraction approach which can explicitly account for pathologies by jointly modeling normal tissue appearance and pathologies. Specifically, our model uses a three-part image decomposition: (1) normal tissue appearance is captured by principal component analysis (PCA), (2) pathologies are captured via a total variation term, and (3) the skull and surrounding tissue is captured by a sparsity term. Due to its convexity, the resulting decomposition model allows for efficient optimization. Decomposition and image registration steps are alternated to allow statistical modeling of normal tissue appearance in a fixed atlas coordinate system. As a beneficial side effect, the decomposition model allows for the identification of potentially pathological areas and the reconstruction of a quasi-normal image in atlas space. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on four datasets: the publicly available IBSR and LPBA40 datasets which show normal image appearance, the BRATS dataset containing images with brain tumors, and a dataset containing clinical TBI images. We compare the performance with other popular brain extraction models: ROBEX, BEaST, MASS, BET, BSE and a recently proposed deep learning approach. Our model performs better than these competing approaches on all four datasets. Specifically, our model achieves the best median (97.11) and mean (96.88) Dice scores over all datasets. The two best performing competitors, ROBEX and MASS, achieve scores of 96.23/95.62 and 96.67/94.25 respectively. Hence, our approach is an effective method for high quality brain extraction for a wide variety of images.

Dataset Information

Neuron Image Analyzer: Automated and Accurate Extraction of Neuronal Data from Low Quality Images.

Publications

Neuron Image Analyzer: Automated and Accurate Extraction of Neuronal Data from Low Quality Images.

Similar Datasets

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