title: Haptically assisted connection procedure for the reconstruction of dendritic spines.
abstract: Dendritic spines are thin protrusions that cover the dendritic surface of numerous neurons in the brain and whose function seems to play a key role in neural circuits. The correct segmentation of those structures is difficult due to their small size and the resulting spines can appear incomplete. This paper presents a four-step procedure for the complete reconstruction of dendritic spines. The haptically driven procedure is intended to work as an image processing stage before the automatic segmentation step giving the final representation of the dendritic spines. The procedure is designed to allow both the navigation and the volume image editing to be carried out using a haptic device. A use case employing our procedure together with a commercial software package for the segmentation stage is illustrated. Finally, the haptic editing is evaluated in two experiments; the first experiment concerns the benefits of the force feedback and the second checks the suitability of the use of a haptic device as input. In both cases, the results shows that the procedure improves the editing accuracy.
authors.forename: Loic
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Corenthy
authors.forename: Marcos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bayona
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Santuy
authors.forename: Jose San
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Benavides-Piccione
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: DeFelipe
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pastor
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D049229:Dendritic Spines; D025461:Feedback, Physiological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008297:Male; D008859:Microscopy, Polarization; D012984:Software; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D055815:Young Adult