Microsoft Word - bioimageWorkshop_revised_GPL.DOC

Quantifying the deformation of retinal tissue after injury is crucial in understanding and characterizing the functional effect of cellular changes. We present a novel method to compute multiple quantitative measures from a single set of retinal images collected with a confocal microscope. We automatically detect nuclei within the outer nuclear layer (ONL) in these images and based on the results, we also automatically measure the thickness of the ONL, the local cell density and the distortion indices within the ONL. These measurements not only verify previous conclusions about retinal restructuring after detachment, but also provide biologists with significant new information about the regional responses within the layer of photoreceptor nuclei.