Application of mathematical morphology algorithms for automatic quantification of the cytoarchitecture of human neocortex.

As a powerful approach to the image processing, the Mathematical Morphology (MM) proved the advantages of its application in many different fields, including biomedical disciplines. In the previous paper we gave an overview of the morphocorticography method, its main principles and some applications in neuroscience. Thereby, the exploitation of MM plays an important role. The goal of the present paper is to give a detailed description of the measuring procedure and image processing algorithms, which form the base of the method. Its application for performing the main steps of the automatic examination of the cytoarchitectonic specimen, including autofocusing, thresholding, elimination of vessels and artefacts, separation of overlapping cellular elements and measurement procedure, is described.