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Title: Stochastic Neural Networks for Automatic Cell Tracking in Microscopy Image Sequences of Bacterial Colonies
Our work targets automated analysis to quantify the growth dynamics of a population of bacilliform bacteria. We propose an innovative approach to frame-sequence tracking of deformable-cell motion by the automated minimization of a new, specific cost functional. This minimization is implemented by dedicated Boltzmann machines (stochastic recurrent neural networks). Automated detection of cell divisions is handled similarly by successive minimizations of two cost functions, alternating the identification of children pairs and parent identification. We validate the proposed automatic cell tracking algorithm using (i) recordings of simulated cell colonies that closely mimic the growth dynamics of E. coli in microfluidic traps and (ii) real data. On a batch of 1100 simulated image frames, cell registration accuracies per frame ranged from 94.5% to 100%, with a high average. Our initial tests using experimental image sequences (i.e., real data) of E. coli colonies also yield convincing results, with a registration accuracy ranging from 90% to 100%.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2012825 1854853 1936770
NSF-PAR ID:
10334587
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Mathematical and Computational Applications
Volume:
27
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2297-8747
Page Range / eLocation ID:
22
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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