RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 COUNTEN, an AI-Driven Tool for Rapid and Objective Structural Analyses of the Enteric Nervous System
JF eneuro
JO eNeuro
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP ENEURO.0092-21.2021
DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0092-21.2021
VO 8
IS 4
A1 Yuta Kobayashi
A1 Alicia Bukowski
A1 Subhamoy Das
A1 Cedric Espenel
A1 Julieta Gomez-Frittelli
A1 Narayani Wagle
A1 Shriya Bakshi
A1 Monalee Saha
A1 Julia A. Kaltschmidt
A1 Archana Venkataraman
A1 Subhash Kulkarni
YR 2021
UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/8/4/ENEURO.0092-21.2021.abstract
AB The enteric nervous system (ENS) consists of an interconnected meshwork of neurons and glia residing within the wall of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. While healthy GI function is associated with healthy ENS structure, defined by the normal distribution of neurons within ganglia of the ENS, a comprehensive understanding of normal neuronal distribution and ganglionic organization in the ENS is lacking. Current methodologies for manual enumeration of neurons parse only limited tissue regions and are prone to error, subjective bias, and peer-to-peer discordance. There is accordingly a need for robust, and objective tools that can capture and quantify enteric neurons within multiple ganglia over large areas of tissue. Here, we report on the development of an AI-driven tool, COUNTEN (COUNTing Enteric Neurons), which is capable of accurately identifying and enumerating immunolabeled enteric neurons, and objectively clustering them into ganglia. We tested and found that COUNTEN matches trained humans in its accuracy while taking a fraction of the time to complete the analyses. Finally, we use COUNTEN’s accuracy and speed to identify and cluster thousands of ileal myenteric neurons into hundreds of ganglia to compute metrics that help define the normal structure of the ileal myenteric plexus. To facilitate reproducible, robust, and objective measures of ENS structure across mouse models, experiments, and institutions, COUNTEN is freely and openly available to all researchers.