Spatial point pattern analysis of neurons using Ripley’s K-function in 3D
- 1
Department of Neuroscience, Stockholm Brain Institute, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- 2
Department of Mathematics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
- 3
Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden
The aim of this paper is to apply a non-parametric statistical tool, Ripley’s K-function, to analyze the 3-dimensional distribution of pyramidal neurons. Ripley’s K-function is a widely used tool in spatial point pattern analysis. There are several approaches in 2D domains in which this function is executed and analyzed. Drawing consistent inferences on the underlying 3D point pattern distributions in various applications is of great importance as the acquisition of 3D biological data now poses lesser of a challenge due to technological progress. As of now, most of the applications of Ripley’s K-function in 3D domains do not focus on the phenomenon of edge correction, which is discussed thoroughly in this paper. The main goal is to extend the theoretical and practical utilization of Ripley’s K-function and corresponding tests based on bootstrap resampling from 2D to 3D domains.
Keywords:
Ripley’s K-function, edge correction in 3D, bootstrap resampling
Citation:
Jafari-Mamaghani M, Andersson M and Krieger P (2010) Spatial point pattern analysis of neurons using Ripley’s K-function in 3D. Front. Neuroinform. 4:9. doi: 10.3389/fninf.2010.00009
Received: 21 December 2009;
Paper pending published: 05 February 2010;
Accepted: 06 April 2010;
Published online: 21 May 2010
Edited by:
John Van Horn, University of California at Los Angeles, USA
Reviewed by:
Luciano da F. Costa, Institute of Physics of São Carlos, Brazil
Stephen Eglen, University of Cambridge, UK
Jan G. Bjaalie, University of Oslo, Norway; International Neuroinformatics Coordination Facility, Sweden
Copyright:
© 2010 Jafari-Mamaghani, Andersson and Krieger. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
*Correspondence:
Patrik Krieger, Department of Neuroscience, Nobel Institute for Neurophysiology, Karolinska Institutet, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. e-mail: patrik.krieger@ki.se