A comparison of tracking methods for swimming C. elegans

Christophe Restif; Dimitris Metaxas

doi:10.1117/12.844151

12 March 2010 A comparison of tracking methods for swimming C. Elegans

Christophe Restif, Dimitris Metaxas

Proceedings Volume 7623, Medical Imaging 2010: Image Processing; 76232E (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.844151
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Tracking the swimming motion of C. elegans worms is of high interest for a variety of research projects on behavior in biology, from aging to mating studies. We compare six different tracking methods, derived from two types of image preprocessing, namely local and global thresholding methods, and from three types of segmentation methods: low-level vision, and articulated models of either constant or varying width. All these methods have been successfully used in recent related works, with some modifications to adapt them to swimming motions. We show a quantitative comparison of these methods using computer-vision measures. To discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses, we consider three scenarios of behavior studies, depending on the constraints of a C. elegans project, and give suggestions as to which methods are more adapted to each case, and how to further improve them.

Citation Download Citation

Christophe Restif and Dimitris Metaxas "A comparison of tracking methods for swimming C. Elegans", Proc. SPIE 7623, Medical Imaging 2010: Image Processing, 76232E (12 March 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.844151

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