title: An Automatic Method for Nucleus Boundary Segmentation Based on a Closed Cubic Spline.
abstract: The recognition of brain nuclei is the basis for localizing brain functions. Traditional histological research, represented by atlas illustration, achieves the goal of nucleus boundary recognition by manual delineation, but it has become increasingly difficult to extend this handmade method to delineating brain regions and nuclei from large datasets acquired by the recently developed single-cell-resolution imaging techniques for the whole brain. Here, we propose a method based on a closed cubic spline (CCS), which can automatically segment the boundaries of nuclei that differ to a relatively high degree in cell density from the surrounding areas and has been validated on model images and Nissl-stained microimages of mouse brain. It may even be extended to the segmentation of target outlines on MRI or CT images. The proposed method for the automatic extraction of nucleus boundaries would greatly accelerate the illustration of high-resolution brain atlases.
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics- Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyWuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics of Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyWuhan, China.
authors.forename: Zhao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics- Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyWuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics of Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyWuhan, China.
authors.forename: Anan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics- Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyWuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics of Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyWuhan, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics- Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyWuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics of Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyWuhan, China.
authors.forename: Qingming
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Luo
keywords: automatic; brain; closed cubic spline; histological image; nucleus segmentation