2019/08/14 by Christoffersen, Andreas D., Møller, Jesper, Christensen, Heidi S.
#FOS: Computer and information sciences #Methodology (stat.ME)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1908.05065
For modelling the location of pyramidal cells in the human cerebral cortex we suggest a hierarchical point process in ℝ3 that exhibits anisotropy in the form of cylinders extending along the z-axis. The model consists first of a generalised shot noise Cox process for the xy-coordinates, providing cylindrical clusters, and next of a Markov random field model for the z-coordinates conditioned on the xy-coordinates, providing either repulsion, aggregation, or both within specified areas of interaction. Several cases of these hierarchical point processes are fitted to two pyramidal cell datasets, and of these a final model allowing for both repulsion and attraction between the points seem adequate. We discuss how the final model relates to the so-called minicolumn hypothesis in neuroscience.