Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Briefing
  • Published:

Inferring how animals deform improves cell tracking

Nature Methods volume 21, pages 26–27 (2024)Cite this article

Subjects

Tracking cells is a time-consuming part of biological image analysis, and traditional manual annotation methods are prohibitively laborious for tracking neurons in the deforming and moving Caenorhabditis elegans brain. By leveraging machine learning to develop a ‘targeted augmentation’ method, we substantially reduced the number of labeled images required for tracking.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Posture space.

References

  1. Schrödel, T., Prevedel, R., Aumayr, K., Zimmer, M. & Vaziri, A. Brain-wide 3D imaging of neuronal activity in Caenorhabditis elegans with sculpted light. Nat. Methods 10, 1013–1020 (2013). This paper reports whole-brain imaging in C. elegans.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Prevedel, R. et al. Simultaneous whole-animal 3D imaging of neuronal activity using light-field microscopy. Nat. Methods 11, 727–730 (2014). This paper reports whole-brain imaging in C. elegans and larval zebrafish.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Lemon, W. C. et al. Whole-central nervous system functional imaging in larval. Drosophila. Nat. Commun. 6, 7924 (2015). This paper reports whole-brain imaging in Drosophila.

  4. Dupre, C. & Yuste, R. Non-overlapping neural networks in Hydra vulgaris. Curr. Biol. 27, 1085–1097 (2017). This paper reports whole-brain imaging in Hydra vulgaris.

Download references

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This is a summary of: Park, C. F. et al. Automated neuron tracking inside moving and deforming C. elegans using deep learning and targeted augmentation. Nat. Methods https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-02096-3 (2023).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Inferring how animals deform improves cell tracking. Nat Methods 21, 26–27 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-02097-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-02097-2

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing