Segmentation of the 4DL Connectome 11: CFP 14.3.11-2R

Connectomic analysis of the nervous system aims to discover and establish principles that underpin normal and abnormal neural connectivity and function. In Hirst et al (2013) we performed image analysis of motor unit connectivity in the fourth deep lumbrical muscle (4DL) of mice, using transgenic expression of fluorescent protein in motor neurones as a morphological reporter. We developed a method that accelerated segmentation of confocal image projections of 4DL motor units, by applying high resolution (63×, 1.4 NA objective) imaging or deconvolution only where either proved necessary, in order to resolve axon crossings that produced ambiguities in the correct assignment of axon terminals to identified motor units imaged at lower optical resolution (40×, 1.3 NA). This dataset is the outcome of Cyan Fluorescent Protein (CFP) expression in muscle 14.3.11-2R of the mouse footpad. This zip archive contains three subdirectories containing primary images and data on axon segmentation and endplate analysis respectively. The remainder of the data relating to this study can be found grouped together in the "Connectomic analysis of the mouse fourth deep lumbrical muscle connectome" DataShare Collection at http://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk/handle/10283/2657.

神经系统连接组学分析旨在发掘并确立支撑正常与异常神经连接与功能的核心原理。在Hirst等人（2013）的研究中，我们以运动神经元内的转基因荧光蛋白作为形态学报告因子，对小鼠第四深蚓状肌（fourth deep lumbrical muscle, 4DL）内的运动单位连接性开展了图像分析。我们开发了一种可加速4DL运动单位共聚焦图像投影分割的方法：仅在确有必要时，采用高分辨率成像（63×物镜，数值孔径1.4）或反卷积处理，以解决轴突交叉问题——这类交叉会导致在将轴突终末正确匹配至低光学分辨率（40×物镜，数值孔径1.3）下成像的已识别运动单位时产生歧义。本数据集源自小鼠足垫肌肉14.3.11-2R内的青色荧光蛋白（Cyan Fluorescent Protein, CFP）表达样本。本压缩包包含三个子目录，分别存放原始图像以及轴突分割、运动终板分析相关的数据。本研究的其余数据可在爱丁堡大学数据共享库（DataShare）的「小鼠第四深蚓状肌连接组学分析」数据集合集中获取，链接为：http://datashare.is.ed.ac.uk/handle/10283/2657。