Registration of Regeneration in Planarians from Photographic Images

Abstract

. In this study, an approach to constructing a mathematical model for quantifying the dynamics of regeneration of planarian flatworms in biological experiments is considered, based on an analysis of a series of digital microscopic images. A method is proposed to describe the body shape of a planarian using a continuous morphological model, based on the concept of a medial representation of the worm’s silhouette. The silhouette in this case is a polygon approximating the contours of the planarian’s body. The medial representation of the figure includes a medial axis and a radial function that describes the width of the figure relative to the medial axis. We propose a set of morphological criteria for assessing the dynamics of regeneration based on a continuous morphological model and present the results of computational experiments. © 2021 Journal of Biomedical Photonics & Engineering.