Three-dimensional dendritic spine detection based on minimal cross-sectional curvature

The morphological changes of dendritic spines play a role in adaptive changes of the bram, and dysregulation of them is implicated in various neurological disorders. A systematic analysis tool for the morphology of dendritic spines, acquired via high resolution optical microscopy, should contribute to our understanding of neurophysiology as well as neuropathology. However, large numbers of high-resolution dendritic spine images make manual labeling extremely difficult and laborious. This is particularly challenging for the slender and curved dendritic spines frequently found in the striatum, dysregulation of which is highly implicated in neuropsychiatrie diseases, especially when compared to the analysis of relatively small and bulbous dendritic spines in other bram areas, including the hippocampus and cortex, synaptic dysregulation and neurodegeneration, of which are implicated in Alzheimer´s disease. In this paper, we present cross-sectional curvature, a new feature, for detecting the tip of dendritic spines in stnatal neurons, the spines of which are then segmented using the region growing strategy. Comparative results showed that our method was more accurate and superior to the existing ones.