title: Brain tissue tessellation shows absence of canonical microcircuits.
abstract: We provide a novel, fast and cheap method for the morphological evaluation of simple 2-D images taken from histological samples. This method, based on computational geometry, leads to a novel kind of "tessellation" of every type of biological picture, in order to locate the zones equipped with very fine-grained differences in the tissue texture, compared with the surrounding ones. As an example, we apply the technique to the evaluation of histological images from brain sections and demonstrate that the cortical layers, rather than being a canonical assembly of homogeneous cells as usually believed, display scattered neuronal micro-clusters equipped with higher activity than the surrounding ones.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, 75A Chancellor's Circle, Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6, Canada. Electronic address: james.peters3@umanitoba.ca.
authors.forename: James F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.affiliation: Center for Nonlinear Science, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle, #311427, Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA. Electronic address: tozziarturo@libero.it.
authors.forename: Arturo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tozzi
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Computer Science, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E9, Canada. Electronic address: s.ramanna@uwinnipeg.ca.
authors.forename: Sheela
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ramanna
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D006652:Histological Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Brain; Histology; Phrenology; Topology; Voronoi