Analysis of the growth process of neural cells in culture environment using image processing techniques

Abstract

Here we present an approach for processing neural cells images to analyze their growth process in culture environment. We have applied several image processing techniques for: 1- Environmental noise reduction, 2- Neural cells segmentation, 3- Neural cells classification based on their dendrites' growth conditions, and 4- neurons' features Extraction and measurement (e.g., like cell body area, number of dendrites, axon's length, and so on). Due to the large amount of noise in the images, we have used feed forward artificial neural networks to detect edges more precisely. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.