Morphology


Complete morphological analysis requires precise representation and feature extraction of the object of interest. At MBF Labs our trained technicians can reconstruct objects as large as whole organs or as small as dendritic spines. Various analyses, including Sholl and polar histograms, can be performed using the reconstruction data.

MBF Labs has expert technicians providing full consultation and analysis of the object of interest. Neurolucida, the most advanced tracing software, is used to perform these reconstructions. The morphology of many objects can be analyzed using this technology. When evaluating neurons, this program enables accurate tracing of the dendritic trees, axonal arborization, and the soma. This reconstruction technology can also be expanded to other areas of interest, including representation of an injury from the image data of an MRI.

MBF Labs can perform detailed morphometric analysis of neurons. This technique will create a visual representation of how individual or multiple neurons are positioned in three dimensional space.

Data from reconstructed neurons contained in single or serial sections include:

• 3-D measurements of bifurcating and trifurcating branching processes
• Dendritic spine distribution and density
• Synaptic bouton distribution and density
• Branch complexity
• Volumes of branches and somas
• Surface area
• Cytoarchetectonic organization
• Morphometric analyses

A 3-D visualization can be created from the reconstruction and provided as an .xml file appropriate for use in presentations, documents, digital reproductions and supplementary materials.