5,747 research outputs found
Large-Scale Automatic Reconstruction of Neuronal Processes from Electron Microscopy Images
Automated sample preparation and electron microscopy enables acquisition of
very large image data sets. These technical advances are of special importance
to the field of neuroanatomy, as 3D reconstructions of neuronal processes at
the nm scale can provide new insight into the fine grained structure of the
brain. Segmentation of large-scale electron microscopy data is the main
bottleneck in the analysis of these data sets. In this paper we present a
pipeline that provides state-of-the art reconstruction performance while
scaling to data sets in the GB-TB range. First, we train a random forest
classifier on interactive sparse user annotations. The classifier output is
combined with an anisotropic smoothing prior in a Conditional Random Field
framework to generate multiple segmentation hypotheses per image. These
segmentations are then combined into geometrically consistent 3D objects by
segmentation fusion. We provide qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the
automatic segmentation and demonstrate large-scale 3D reconstructions of
neuronal processes from a volume of brain
tissue over a cube of in each dimension corresponding to
1000 consecutive image sections. We also introduce Mojo, a proofreading tool
including semi-automated correction of merge errors based on sparse user
scribbles
A proposal for a coordinated effort for the determination of brainwide neuroanatomical connectivity in model organisms at a mesoscopic scale
In this era of complete genomes, our knowledge of neuroanatomical circuitry
remains surprisingly sparse. Such knowledge is however critical both for basic
and clinical research into brain function. Here we advocate for a concerted
effort to fill this gap, through systematic, experimental mapping of neural
circuits at a mesoscopic scale of resolution suitable for comprehensive,
brain-wide coverage, using injections of tracers or viral vectors. We detail
the scientific and medical rationale and briefly review existing knowledge and
experimental techniques. We define a set of desiderata, including brain-wide
coverage; validated and extensible experimental techniques suitable for
standardization and automation; centralized, open access data repository;
compatibility with existing resources, and tractability with current
informatics technology. We discuss a hypothetical but tractable plan for mouse,
additional efforts for the macaque, and technique development for human. We
estimate that the mouse connectivity project could be completed within five
years with a comparatively modest budget.Comment: 41 page
Machine learning of hierarchical clustering to segment 2D and 3D images
We aim to improve segmentation through the use of machine learning tools
during region agglomeration. We propose an active learning approach for
performing hierarchical agglomerative segmentation from superpixels. Our method
combines multiple features at all scales of the agglomerative process, works
for data with an arbitrary number of dimensions, and scales to very large
datasets. We advocate the use of variation of information to measure
segmentation accuracy, particularly in 3D electron microscopy (EM) images of
neural tissue, and using this metric demonstrate an improvement over competing
algorithms in EM and natural images.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
Multi-stage Multi-recursive-input Fully Convolutional Networks for Neuronal Boundary Detection
In the field of connectomics, neuroscientists seek to identify cortical
connectivity comprehensively. Neuronal boundary detection from the Electron
Microscopy (EM) images is often done to assist the automatic reconstruction of
neuronal circuit. But the segmentation of EM images is a challenging problem,
as it requires the detector to be able to detect both filament-like thin and
blob-like thick membrane, while suppressing the ambiguous intracellular
structure. In this paper, we propose multi-stage multi-recursive-input fully
convolutional networks to address this problem. The multiple recursive inputs
for one stage, i.e., the multiple side outputs with different receptive field
sizes learned from the lower stage, provide multi-scale contextual boundary
information for the consecutive learning. This design is
biologically-plausible, as it likes a human visual system to compare different
possible segmentation solutions to address the ambiguous boundary issue. Our
multi-stage networks are trained end-to-end. It achieves promising results on
two public available EM segmentation datasets, the mouse piriform cortex
dataset and the ISBI 2012 EM dataset.Comment: Accepted by ICCV201
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