Reconstruction and simulation for three-dimensional morphological structure of insect neurons

We present a system for the reconstruction three-dimensional morphological structure of a neuron from a sequence of tomographic images acquired by a confocal laser scanning microscope. In this system, the branching structure and diameter of dendrites are extracted by the Single-Seed Distance Transform method. Compartmental neuron models are reconstructed using the morphological structure detected by our system. In order to analyze electrical properties, a model description for the neuronal simulator, NEURON, is generated automatically. The effectiveness of the proposed system is shown by application to the reconstruction of interneurons in an antennal lobe of silkworm moths.