Development of Computer Assisted Sperm Analysis (CASA) plugin for analyzing sperm in microfluidic environments using Image-J

We modified a previously reported Computer Assisted Sperm Analysis (CASA) plugin for Image-J to enable analyzing sperm cells in microfluidic environments. An image processing pipeline was built for object detection and particle tracking was improved. New parameters were introduced to allow studying new aspects of sperm motion behavior such as rheotaxis and wall tracking. A preliminary study using this tool agreed well with previously reported studies on rheotaxis and wall tracking behavior of sperm.

I. Introduction

Studying sperm cells and their motion characteristics is of utmost importance in fertility assessment and other applications such as artificial insemination and In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) [1]. Due to the large number of sperm cells involved, using machine vision is a must. The most common is Computer Assisted Sperm Analysis (CASA), which refers to the hardware (microscope, camera, PC) and software needed to analyze sperm motion characteristics [2]. CASA is used to make an objective analysis of sperm motion as a measure of fertility assessment and quality assurance of semen for artificial insemination. It is also used in research, to gain a better understanding of the motion of sperm and the mechanisms responsible for sperm progression to a female egg [2].