# Ca2+ transient detection and segmentation with the Astronomically motivated algorithm for Background Estimation And Transient Segmentation (Astro-BEATS)

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.22311 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.22311/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [3D U-Net: Learning Dense Volumetric Segmentation from Sparse Annotation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.06650/) (2016)
- [Explaining Machine Learning Classifiers through Diverse Counterfactual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.07697/) (2019)
- [Learning from positive and unlabeled data: a survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.04820/) (2018)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Fluorescence-based Ca2+-imaging is a powerful tool for studying localized neuronal activity, including miniature Synaptic Calcium Transients, providing real-time insights into synaptic activity. These transients induce only subtle changes in the fluorescence signal, often barely above baseline, which poses a significant challenge for automated synaptic transient detection and segmentation. Detecting astronomical transients similarly requires efficient algorithms that will remain robust over a large field of view with varying noise properties. We leverage techniques used in astronomical transient detection for miniature Synaptic Calcium Transient detection in fluorescence microscopy. We present Astro-BEATS, an automatic miniature Synaptic Calcium Transient segmentation algorithm that incorporates image estimation and source-finding techniques used in astronomy and designed for Ca2+-imaging videos. Astro-BEATS outperforms current threshold-based approaches for synaptic Ca2+ transient detection and segmentation. The produced segmentation masks can be used to train a supervised deep learning algorithm for improved synaptic Ca2+ transient detection in Ca2+-imaging data. The speed of Astro-BEATS and its applicability to previously unseen datasets without re-optimization makes it particularly useful for generating training datasets for deep learning-based approaches.