Southeast University - Allen Institute Joint Center, Institute for Brain and Intelligence, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China.
School of Computer Engineering and Science, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China.
Nat Commun. 2019 Aug 2;10(1):3474. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-11443-y.
Neuron morphology is recognized as a key determinant of cell type, yet the quantitative profiling of a mammalian neuron's complete three-dimensional (3-D) morphology remains arduous when the neuron has complex arborization and long projection. Whole-brain reconstruction of neuron morphology is even more challenging as it involves processing tens of teravoxels of imaging data. Validating such reconstructions is extremely laborious. We develop TeraVR, an open-source virtual reality annotation system, to address these challenges. TeraVR integrates immersive and collaborative 3-D visualization, interaction, and hierarchical streaming of teravoxel-scale images. Using TeraVR, we have produced precise 3-D full morphology of long-projecting neurons in whole mouse brains and developed a collaborative workflow for highly accurate neuronal reconstruction.
神经元形态被认为是细胞类型的关键决定因素，但当神经元具有复杂的分支和长突时，对其完整的三维（3-D）形态进行定量分析仍然很困难。由于涉及处理数十太字节的成像数据，因此对神经元形态进行全脑重建更加具有挑战性。验证这些重建极其费力。我们开发了 TeraVR，这是一个开源的虚拟现实注释系统，旨在解决这些挑战。TeraVR 集成了沉浸式和协作式 3-D 可视化、交互以及太字节规模图像的分层流。使用 TeraVR，我们已经生成了整个小鼠大脑中长突神经元的精确 3-D 全形态，并开发了用于高度精确神经元重建的协作工作流程。
