Segmentation and Analysis of Nerve Fibers in Histologic Sections of the Cerebral Human Cortex

This paper describes an image acquisition and processing chain toward the analysis of images of thin histologic sections of the cerebral human cortex. We are particularly interested in the spatial distributions of nerve fibers, the inhomogeneities of which indicate architectonic and functional changes between different cortical areas. We therefore focus on the development of a specific optical and algorithmic chain to acquire histologic images in an appropriate resolution, and to enhance, segment, skeletonize and separate nerve fibers in these images. The processing results prepare the images for subsequent local measurements of nerve fiber orientation, fiber lengths, fiber density, area fraction occupied by fibers, and others.