title: Guidelines for the fitting of anomalous diffusion mean square displacement graphs from single particle tracking experiments.
abstract: Single particle tracking is an essential tool in the study of complex systems and biophysics and it is commonly analyzed by the time-averaged mean square displacement (MSD) of the diffusive trajectories. However, past work has shown that MSDs are susceptible to significant errors and biases, preventing the comparison and assessment of experimental studies. Here, we attempt to extract practical guidelines for the estimation of anomalous time averaged MSDs through the simulation of multiple scenarios with fractional Brownian motion as a representative of a large class of fractional ergodic processes. We extract the precision and accuracy of the fitted MSD for various anomalous exponents and measurement errors with respect to measurement length and maximum time lags. Based on the calculated precision maps, we present guidelines to improve accuracy in single particle studies. Importantly, we find that in some experimental conditions, the time averaged MSD should not be used as an estimator.
authors: Physics Department & Institute of Nanotechnology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
authors: Eldad
authors: E
authors: Kepten
authors: Hugo Steinhaus Center, Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors: Aleksander
authors: A
authors: Weron
authors: Hugo Steinhaus Center, Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors: Grzegorz
authors: G
authors: Sikora
authors: Hugo Steinhaus Center, Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland.
authors: Krzysztof
authors: K
authors: Burnecki
authors: Physics Department & Institute of Nanotechnology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
authors: Yuval
authors: Y
authors: Garini
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D008962:Models, Theoretical