FY2010 - Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Seed Money Fund—
Measurement Science and Systems Engineering Division
MEASUREMENT SCIENCE AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING DIVISION
00510
Development of Computational Methods for Neurobiological
Imaging Research
Shaun S. Gleason, Ryan A. Kerekes, Richard Ward, Barbara G. Beckerman, Michael Dyer, David
Solecki, and Stanislav Zakharenko
Project Description
Neurobiologists are interested in understanding how neurons form complex synaptic circuits during
development and how these processes are perturbed in diseases. Neuronal migration and maturation
during development play a critical role in how neurons ultimately function. Development of
computational methods to extract pertinent information from the large three- and four-dimensional image
data sets has not kept pace with available imaging technologies. This project will develop a set of analysis
methods that allows researchers to discover relationships between the anatomical and migratory
characteristics of neurons and their ability to function in a network of cells. These methods will provide a
foundation upon which a comprehensive suite of tools can be developed. The biological questions that
these tools will address strike at the foundation of many neurological disorders including Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s, and schizophrenia.
Mission Relevance
Although the initial application of this research is for analysis of cellular morphology and migration
within animal models, the results may be applicable to cellular analysis of morphology and migration for
plant materials targeted for bioenergy. In addition, the techniques learned during development of motion
tracking methods for neuron cells may be useful for motion detection in security applications where
people must be monitored in a facility. The same concept may be applied to intelligent energy delivery
(e.g., of light, and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) by monitoring and tracking the location of
people within a facility and delivering energy based on location and activity, or task. This work will
benefit the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The project addresses the needs of a program entitled
“NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research,” which looks for new methods, tools, instrumentation, etc.,
that will have benefit to multiple National Institutes, such as Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and
Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Also, the project can benefit the Department of Defense,
particularly in the areas of neuronal interfacing for prosthetics and traumatic brain injury.
Results and Accomplishments
Our collaborators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital provided us with a large data set of retinal
horizontal neuron imagery. The dataset consists of 95 confocal image stacks of developing mouse retinas,
each covering an area of 200 200 μm and a depth of roughly 150 μm and containing on the order of
10-20 neurons. The images were acquired from both wild-type and knockout genotypes at various stages
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