Automated computation of nerve fibre inclinations from 3D polarised light imaging measurements of brain tissue

Year: 2022

Authors: Menzel M., Reuter JA., Graessel D., Costantini I., Amunts K., Axer M.

Autors Affiliation: Forschungszentrum Julich, Inst Neurosci & Med INM 1, Julich, Germany; Univ Florence, European Lab Nonlinear Spect, Florence, Italy; Univ Florence, Dept Biol, Florence, Italy; CNR, Natl Inst Opt, Rome, Italy; Heinrich Heine Univ Dusseldorf, Univ Hosp Dusseldorf, Cecile & Oskar Vogt Inst Brain Res, Dusseldorf, Germany.

Abstract: The method 3D polarised light imaging (3D-PLI) measures the birefringence of histological brain sections to determine the spatial course of nerve fibres (myelinated axons). While the in-plane fibre directions can be determined with high accuracy, the computation of the out-of-plane fibre inclinations is more challenging because they are derived from the amplitude of the birefringence signals, which depends e.g. on the amount of nerve fibres. One possibility to improve the accuracy is to consider the average transmitted light intensity (transmittance weighting). The current procedure requires effortful manual adjustment of parameters and anatomical knowledge. Here, we introduce an automated, optimised computation of the fibre inclinations, allowing for a much faster, reproducible determination of fibre orientations in 3D-PLI. Depending on the degree of myelination, the algorithm uses different models (transmittance-weighted, unweighted, or a linear combination), allowing to account for regionally specific behaviour. As the algorithm is parallelised and GPU optimised, it can be applied to large data sets. Moreover, it only uses images from standard 3D-PLI measurements without tilting, and can therefore be applied to existing data sets from previous measurements. The functionality is demonstrated on unstained coronal and sagittal histological sections of vervet monkey and rat brains.

Journal/Review: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

Volume: 12 (1)      Pages from: 4328-1  to: 4328-14

More Information: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
KeyWords: Resolution; Mri
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-08140-0

Citations: 4
data from “WEB OF SCIENCE” (of Thomson Reuters) are update at: 2024-11-17
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