Workflow and Atlas System for Brain-Wide Mapping of Axonal Connectivity in Rat

Detailed knowledge about the anatomical organization of axonal connections is important for understanding normal functions of brain systems and disease-related dysfunctions. Such connectivity data are typically generated in neuroanatomical tract-tracing experiments in which specific axonal connections are visualized in histological sections. Since journal publications typically only accommodate restricted data descriptions and example images, literature search is a cumbersome way to retrieve overviews of brain connectivity. To explore more efficient ways of mapping, analyzing, and sharing detailed axonal connectivity data from the rodent brain, we have implemented a workflow for data production and developed an atlas system tailored for online presentation of axonal tracing data. The system is available online through the Rodent Brain WorkBench (www.rbwb.org; Whole Brain Connectivity Atlas) and holds experimental metadata and high-resolution images of histological sections from experiments in which axonal tracers were injected in the primary somatosensory cortex. We here present the workflow and the data system, and exemplify how the online image repository can be used to map different aspects of the brain-wide connectivity of the rat primary somatosensory cortex, including not only presence of connections but also morphology, densities, and spatial organization. The accuracy of the approach is validated by comparing results generated with our system with findings reported in previous publications. The present study is a contribution to a systematic mapping of rodent brain connections and represents a starting point for further large-scale mapping efforts

Steerable Filters from Erlang Functions

Scale and orientation steerable 2D filters are constructed using a frame of Erlang functions in the Fourier domain. Erlang forms for the radial frequency characteristic are shown to provide complex quadrature filters which can be steered in a scale parameter, #. Oriented, spatial domain filters are constructed by imposing an appropriate angular selectivity in the frequency domain. A filter bank is designed, and outputs of the filters of the bank are steered to construct an oriented scale-space decomposition of an image subband. Some applications are discussed. 1 Introduction The use of sub-band methods in image analysis is perhaps not as widespread as for coding. Nevertheless, quite successful and powerful analysis algorithms have been demonstrated [1]. One can make good use of sub-band processing when image features exist at several scales, so that operators of different sizes must be employed: a key issue then becomes the design of these operators. This paper, in a manner similar to..