Definition
A synthetic neuronal morphology is a digital representation of a neuron’s morphology that is not acquired experimentally but rather generated by an algorithm. The input to such an algorithm is often a prototype, experimentally reconstructed morphology (or a set thereof). A synthesis algorithm then incorporates this prototype data in some way to generate a new digital reconstruction from scratch. Thus, synthetic neurons are de novo, algorithmically created digital reconstructions not originating directly from experimental data.
History of Synthesizing Neuronal Morphologies
Since the pioneering work of Golgi to visualize neurons in vitro and the subsequent beautiful drawings by Ramon y Cajal, neuroscientists have been fascinated by neuronal morphologies. The attempt of Hillman (Hillman 1979) to quantify neuronal morphologies kick-started the field investigating...
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Torben-Nielsen, B. (2014). Synthetic Neuronal Morphology. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_238-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_238-2
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