Project 1: The Mouse Brain Library Project 2: Internet Microscopy (iScope) Project 3: Neurocartographer and Segmentation of the MBL Project 4: The Neurogenetics Tool Box



























 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  
 

RESEARCH PLAN

  
 

Principal Investigator/Program Director Williams,Robert W.

 
 

Aim 3: Segmentation of the MBL and extraction of quantitative traits

The alignment performed in Aim 2 will be refined to permit accurate segmentation of sections. Using automatically segmented fiducial points for registration, a nonlinear transformation will be computed that maps each section into the standard coordinate system. (The application to be developed for nonlinear alignment will be released to the research community.) Our five-year objective is to segment each brain in the Mouse Brain Library into 1200 standard anatomical structures (at a resolution of 36 mm) from which quantitative values can be rapidly extracted. New features in NeuroTerrain will include support for user-defined volumes of interest (VOIs) and visualization tools for exploring anatomical differences between strains.

Software developed in all phases of the project will be available without charge to neuroscientists using the MBL. With the variation maps of the mouse brain generated as part of Aim 3, scientists, ourselves included, can rapidly compare brains from any two strains, or from groups of individuals within a strain, as a function of age, sex, body weight, or environmental factors. This extremely powerful extension of the MBL will highlight those parts of the brain most amenable to quantitative genetic analysis. Using the software utilities and web interfaces developed in Aim 3, online researchers will be able to capture, simplify, and display information about the variation among CNS compartments and then generate variation maps of the mouse brain. Data will be extracted and displayed in atlases generated in Aim 1. Neuroscientists will be able to assess, for example, how variation in volume of the striatum correlates to variation in the volume of the anterior thalamic nucleus, the substantia nigra, and the cerebellum.

 

 
   
   
   
 

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