Statistical atlas of C. elegans neurons

Constructing a statistical atlas of neuron positions in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans enables a wide range of applications that require neural identity. These applications include annotating gene expression, extracting calcium activity, and evaluating nervous-system mutations. Large complete s...

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Main Authors: Varol, E, Nejatbakhsh, A, Hobert, O, Mena, G, Paninski, L, Yemini, E, Sun, R
Format: Conference item
Language:English
Published: Springer 2020
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author Varol, E
Nejatbakhsh, A
Hobert, O
Mena, G
Paninski, L
Yemini, E
Sun, R
author_facet Varol, E
Nejatbakhsh, A
Hobert, O
Mena, G
Paninski, L
Yemini, E
Sun, R
author_sort Varol, E
collection OXFORD
description Constructing a statistical atlas of neuron positions in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans enables a wide range of applications that require neural identity. These applications include annotating gene expression, extracting calcium activity, and evaluating nervous-system mutations. Large complete sets of neural annotations are necessary to determine canonical neuron positions and their associated confidence regions. Recently, a transgene of C. elegans (“NeuroPAL”) has been introduced to assign correct identities to all neurons in the worm via a deterministic, fluorescent colormap. This strain has enabled efficient and accurate annotation of worm neurons. Using a dataset of 10 worms, we propose a statistical model that captures the latent means and covariances of neuron locations, with efficient optimization strategies to infer model parameters. We demonstrate the utility of this model in two critical applications. First, we use our trained atlas to automatically annotate neuron identities in C. elegans at the state-of-the-art rate. Second, we use our atlas to compute correlations between neuron positions, thereby determining covariance in neuron placement. The code to replicate the statistical atlas is distributed publicly at https://github.com/amin-nejat/StatAtlas.
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spelling oxford-uuid:0838d9ea-e9ff-4d4d-b52e-8dcbd3efcb9f2022-03-26T09:11:49ZStatistical atlas of C. elegans neuronsConference itemhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794uuid:0838d9ea-e9ff-4d4d-b52e-8dcbd3efcb9fEnglishSymplectic ElementsSpringer2020Varol, ENejatbakhsh, AHobert, OMena, GPaninski, LYemini, ESun, RConstructing a statistical atlas of neuron positions in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans enables a wide range of applications that require neural identity. These applications include annotating gene expression, extracting calcium activity, and evaluating nervous-system mutations. Large complete sets of neural annotations are necessary to determine canonical neuron positions and their associated confidence regions. Recently, a transgene of C. elegans (“NeuroPAL”) has been introduced to assign correct identities to all neurons in the worm via a deterministic, fluorescent colormap. This strain has enabled efficient and accurate annotation of worm neurons. Using a dataset of 10 worms, we propose a statistical model that captures the latent means and covariances of neuron locations, with efficient optimization strategies to infer model parameters. We demonstrate the utility of this model in two critical applications. First, we use our trained atlas to automatically annotate neuron identities in C. elegans at the state-of-the-art rate. Second, we use our atlas to compute correlations between neuron positions, thereby determining covariance in neuron placement. The code to replicate the statistical atlas is distributed publicly at https://github.com/amin-nejat/StatAtlas.
spellingShingle Varol, E
Nejatbakhsh, A
Hobert, O
Mena, G
Paninski, L
Yemini, E
Sun, R
Statistical atlas of C. elegans neurons
title Statistical atlas of C. elegans neurons
title_full Statistical atlas of C. elegans neurons
title_fullStr Statistical atlas of C. elegans neurons
title_full_unstemmed Statistical atlas of C. elegans neurons
title_short Statistical atlas of C. elegans neurons
title_sort statistical atlas of c elegans neurons
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AT nejatbakhsha statisticalatlasofcelegansneurons
AT hoberto statisticalatlasofcelegansneurons
AT menag statisticalatlasofcelegansneurons
AT paninskil statisticalatlasofcelegansneurons
AT yeminie statisticalatlasofcelegansneurons
AT sunr statisticalatlasofcelegansneurons