Automated method and apparatus for determining characteristics of nerve fibers
First Claim
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1. A method of determining characteristics of nerve fibers, said method comprising the steps of:
- generating digital image data representative of an image of a nerve fiber cross-section using an electronic camera;
storing said digital image data in a storage unit;
accessing said digital image data from said storage unit and locating local maxima of said digital image data with a control unit;
performing a variable thresholding operation on said digital image data;
refining said local maxima;
defining a plurality of blob image regions using blob coloring;
performing an elimination operation to identify which of said plurality of blob image regions represent nerve fibers.
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Abstract
An automated method and apparatus determines characteristics of nerve fibers. The apparatus includes an imaging unit that creates a digital image data representative of an image of a cross-section of a nerve fiber to be tested; a control unit, including image processing capability, is coupled to the imaging unit and analyzes the digital image data created by the imaging unit to identify particular characteristics of the nerve fibers including axon area, the myelin sheath area, the fiber area, the myelin sheath thickness, the fiber perimeter and the fiber eccentricity.
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Citations
15 Claims
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1. A method of determining characteristics of nerve fibers, said method comprising the steps of:
- generating digital image data representative of an image of a nerve fiber cross-section using an electronic camera;
storing said digital image data in a storage unit;
accessing said digital image data from said storage unit and locating local maxima of said digital image data with a control unit;
performing a variable thresholding operation on said digital image data;
refining said local maxima;
defining a plurality of blob image regions using blob coloring;
performing an elimination operation to identify which of said plurality of blob image regions represent nerve fibers. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
- generating digital image data representative of an image of a nerve fiber cross-section using an electronic camera;
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9. A method of determining characteristics of nerve fibers, comprising the steps of:
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generating digital image data representative of an image of a nerve fiber cross-section using an electronic camera;
storing said digital image data in a storage unit;
accessing said digital image data from said storage unit and locating local maxima of said digital image data with a control unit;
performing a variable thresholding operation on said digital image data;
refining said local maxima;
defining a plurality of blob image regions using blob coloring; and
performing an elimination operation to identify which of said plurality of blob image regions represent nerve fibers,wherein said step of performing an elimination operation includes the steps of a) determining how many neighbors each of said blob image regions has and terminating the elimination operation when each of said blob image regions has only one or zero neighbors, b) deleting the blob image region with the largest number of neighbors, if there are no regions having only one neighbor, c) selecting from the blob image regions which are neighbors of blob image regions having only one neighbor and deleting the one with the most number of neighbors, and d) repeating steps a), b) and c). - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12)
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13. In a method of measuring diameters of nerve fibers using image analysis, the improvement comprising the steps of:
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obtaining an eccentricity characteristic for a plurality of blob image regions and eliminating blob image regions as not representing nerve fibers based on the eccentricity characteristics thereof. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15)
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Specification