AJP - Endocrinology and Metabolism, Vol 247, Issue 3 412-E419, Copyright © 1984 by American Physiological Society
Three-dimensional reconstruction of metabolic data from quantitative autoradiography of rat brain
L. S. Hibbard and R. A. Hawkins
Quantitative autoradiography is a powerful method for studying brain
function by the determination of blood flow, glucose utilization, or
transport of essential nutrients. Autoradiographic images contain vast
amounts of potentially useful information, but conventional analyses can
practically sample the data at only a small number of points arbitrarily
chosen by the experimenter to represent discrete brain structures. To use
image data more fully, computer methods for its acquisition, storage,
quantitative analysis, and display are required. We have developed a system
of computer programs that performs these tasks and has the following
features: 1) editing and analysis of single images using interactive
graphics, 2) an automatic image alignment algorithm that places images in
register with one another using only the mathematical properties of the
images themselves, 3) the calculation of mean images from equivalent images
in different experimental serial image sets, 4) the calculation of
difference images (e.g., experiment-minus-control) with the option to
display only differences estimated to be statistically significant, and 5)
the display of serial image metabolic maps reconstructed in three
dimensions using a high-speed computer graphics system.
