Suchergebnisse

The definition of the soma is fuzzy, as there is no clear line demarcating the soma of the labeled neurons and the origin of the dendrites and axon. Thus, the morphometric analysis of the neuronal soma is highly subjective. In this paper, we provide a mathematical definition and an automatic segmentation method to delimit the neuronal soma. We applied this method to the characterization of pyramidal cells, which are the most abundant neurons in the cerebral cortex. Since there are no benchmarks with which to compare the proposed procedure, we validated the goodness of this automatic segmentation method against manual segmentation by neuroanatomists to set up a framework for comparison. We concluded that there were no significant differences between automatically and manually segmented somata, i.e., the proposed procedure segments the neurons similarly to how a neuroanatomist does. It also provides univocal, justifiable and objective cutoffs. Thus, this study is a means of characterizing pyramidal neurons in order to objectively compare the morphometry of the somata of these neurons in different cortical areas and species. ; This work has been supported by grants from the following entities: the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (grant BFU2012-34963 the Cajal Blue Brain Project, Spanish partner of the Blue Brain Project initiative from EPFL); Centro de Investigación en Red sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED, CB06/05/0066, Spain); TIN2013-41592-P projects, by the Regional Government of Madrid through the S2013/ICE-2845-CASI-CAM-CM project; and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 604102 (Human Brain Project). ; Peer reviewed ; Peer Reviewed