Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34252950›Full record

ArticleBioinformatics (Oxford, England)2021

Metaball skinning of synthetic astroglial morphologies into realistic mesh models for visual analytics and in silico simulations.

Marwan Abdellah, Alessandro Foni, Eleftherios Zisis, Nadir Román Guerrero, Samuel Lapere, Jay S Coggan, Daniel Keller, Henry Markram, Felix Schürmann

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Bioinformatics (Oxford, England), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

Marwan AbdellahBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Alessandro FoniBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Eleftherios ZisisBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Nadir Román GuerreroBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Samuel LapereBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Jay S CogganBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Daniel KellerBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Henry MarkramBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Felix SchürmannBlue Brain Project (BBP), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva 1202, Switzerland.

Funding

King Abdullah University of Science and TechnologyOffice of Sponsored Research OSR-2017-CRG6-3438Swiss Government's ETH Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

motivationAstrocytes, the most abundant glial cells in the mammalian brain, have an instrumental role in developing neuronal circuits. They contribute to the physical structuring of the brain, modulating synaptic activity and maintaining the blood-brain barrier in addition to other significant aspects that impact brain function. Biophysically, detailed astrocytic models are key to unraveling their functional mechanisms via molecular simulations at microscopic scales. Detailed, and complete, biological reconstructions of astrocytic cells are sparse. Nonetheless, data-driven digital reconstruction of astroglial morphologies that are statistically identical to biological counterparts are becoming available. We use those synthetic morphologies to generate astrocytic meshes with realistic geometries, making it possible to perform these simulations.

resultsWe present an unconditionally robust method capable of reconstructing high fidelity polygonal meshes of astroglial cells from algorithmically-synthesized morphologies. Our method uses implicit surfaces, or metaballs, to skin the different structural components of astrocytes and then blend them in a seamless fashion. We also provide an end-to-end pipeline to produce optimized two- and three-dimensional meshes for visual analytics and simulations, respectively. The performance of our pipeline has been assessed with a group of 5000 astroglial morphologies and the geometric metrics of the resulting meshes are evaluated. The usability of the meshes is then demonstrated with different use cases. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Our metaball skinning algorithm is implemented in Blender 2.82 relying on its Python API (Application Programming Interface). To make it accessible to computational biologists and neuroscientists, the implementation has been integrated into NeuroMorphoVis, an open source and domain specific package that is primarily designed for neuronal morphology visualization and meshing. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Indexed as

AstrocytesSoftwareAlgorithmsAnimalsComputer SimulationNeurons

Identifiers

PMID34252950
PMCPMC8275327

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.