1. Neuroscience
  2. Physics of Living Systems

Fast deep neural correspondence for tracking and identifying neurons in C. elegans using semi-synthetic training

  1. Xinwei Yu
  2. Matthew S Creamer
  3. Francesco Randi
  4. Anuj Kumar Sharma Ph.D.
  5. Scott W Linderman
  6. Andrew Michael Leifer  Is a corresponding author
  1. Princeton University, United States
  2. Stanford University, United States
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66410
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  1. Xinwei Yu
  2. Matthew S Creamer
  3. Francesco Randi
  4. Anuj Kumar Sharma Ph.D.
  5. Scott W Linderman
  6. Andrew Michael Leifer
(2021)
Fast deep neural correspondence for tracking and identifying neurons in C. elegans using semi-synthetic training
eLife 10:e66410.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66410
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Abstract

We present an automated method to track and identify neurons in C. elegans, called 'fast Deep Neural Correspondence' or fDNC, based on the transformer network architecture. The model is trained once on empirically derived semi-synthetic data and then predicts neural correspondence across held-out real animals. The same pre-trained model both tracks neurons across time and identifies corresponding neurons across individuals. Performance is evaluated against hand-annotated datasets, including NeuroPAL [1]. Using only position information, the method achieves 79.1% accuracy at tracking neurons within an individual and 64.1% accuracy at identifying neurons across individuals. Accuracy at identifying neurons across individuals is even higher (78.2%) when the model is applied to a dataset published by another group [2]. Accuracy reaches 74.7% on our dataset when using color information from NeuroPAL. Unlike previous methods, fDNC does not require straightening or transforming the animal into a canonical coordinate system. The method is fast and predicts correspondence in 10ms making it suitable for future real-time applications.

Data availability

All datasets generated as part of this work have been deposited in a public Open Science Foundation repository DOI:10.17605/OSF.IO/T7DZU.

The following data sets were generated
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Xinwei Yu

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Matthew S Creamer

    Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Francesco Randi

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Anuj Kumar Sharma Ph.D.

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5061-9731

  5. Scott W Linderman

    Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3878-9073

  6. Andrew Michael Leifer

    Department of Physics and Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
    For correspondence
    leifer@princeton.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-5362-5093

Funding

Simons Foundation (543003)

  • Andrew Michael Leifer

Simons Foundation (697092)

  • Scott W Linderman

National Science Foundation (IOS-184537)

  • Andrew Michael Leifer

National Science Foundation (PHY-1734030)

  • Andrew Michael Leifer

National Institutes of Health (R21NS101629)

  • Andrew Michael Leifer

National Institutes of Health (1R01NS113119)

  • Scott W Linderman

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Gordon J Berman, Emory University, United States

Publication history

  1. Received: January 9, 2021
  2. Accepted: July 13, 2021
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: July 14, 2021 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: August 16, 2021 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2021, Yu et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Xinwei Yu
  2. Matthew S Creamer
  3. Francesco Randi
  4. Anuj Kumar Sharma Ph.D.
  5. Scott W Linderman
  6. Andrew Michael Leifer
(2021)
Fast deep neural correspondence for tracking and identifying neurons in C. elegans using semi-synthetic training
eLife 10:e66410.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.66410

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