Symmetry-based 3D brain reconstruction

In this study we investigate the effectiveness of the symmetry feature when applied to the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of mouse brain sections. The symmetry line of each section is estimated, finding the reflective rigid-body transformation that minimizes the absolute distance between a section and its flipped version. Aligning these brain sections´ symmetry lines together forms a 3D brain volume. This symmetry-based brain reconstruction is compared with a moment-based reconstruction. Our results show that a symmetry-based reconstruction is a feasible approach that is less sensitive to local distortion and tears and that will be applicable when the inter-section distance is large.