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arXiv · 1603.08432

Quantifying topological invariants of neuronal morphologies

Lida Kanari·Paweł Dłotko·Martina Scolamiero·Ran Levi·Julian Shillcock·Kathryn Hess·Henry Markram
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Abstract

Nervous systems are characterized by neurons displaying a diversity of morphological shapes. Traditionally, different shapes have been qualitatively described based on visual inspection and quantitatively described based on morphometric parameters. Neither process provides a solid foundation for categorizing the various morphologies, a problem that is important in many fields. We propose a stable topological measure as a standardized descriptor for any tree-like morphology, which encodes its skeletal branching anatomy. More specifically it is a barcode of the branching tree as determined by a spherical filtration centered at the root or neuronal soma. This Topological Morphology Descriptor (TMD) allows for the discrimination of groups of random and neuronal trees at linear computational cost.

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Lida Kanari, Paweł Dłotko, Martina Scolamiero, Ran Levi, Julian Shillcock, Kathryn Hess, Henry Markram. 2016-03-28. Quantifying topological invariants of neuronal morphologies. https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.08432

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