Fractal Analysis in Biology and Medicine

Dear Colleagues,

Ever since Benoit Mandelbrot coined the term fractal and paved the way for the development of fractal geometry and fractal analysis, researchers have found a way to utilize this non-linear analysis method in diverse areas of natural sciences.  During the previous two decades, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of published papers that relied on the use of fractal analysis to measure the complexity of a certain geometrical figure. The complexity is expressed as a fractal dimension, which depicts the space-filling properties of different irregularly shaped objects that can be found in various living and non-living objects. In the vast field of biomedical sciences these objects usually represent various forms of cells, their ultrastructural parts, such as the nucleus, chromatin, and organelles, or specific cell protrusions like dendrites, but also tissue elements or anatomical units of organs. Traditional quantitative, semiquantitative, and qualitative techniques of analysis of these structures provide results of limited value since these conventional methods are not able to detect subtle differences in histological images. However, fractal analysis has now proven to be a useful tool for the detection of those changes in biological objects obtained from both physiological and pathological conditions. In addition to objects obtained from histological images, fractal analysis is increasingly used in the analysis of various images obtained using different imaging methods and biological signals, such as the complexity-based analysis of brain and muscle electrical activity. Although fractal analysis has found its applicability in various fields of biomedical sciences, neuroscience research remains a major field of its utilization, due to its ability to quantify complex and branching structures, such as dendritic tree arborizations. Its simplicity, sensitivity, and cost-effectiveness allow researchers numerous possibilities to implement this non-linear method of analysis in their investigative work.

This Research Topic will welcome diverse types of articles including original research articles, review articles, technical note articles, and perspective articles related to the application of fractal analysis in different biomedical fields.

Topics of interest include diverse biomedical research areas as follows:

• Fractals and fractal theory in biomedical sciences;
• Fractal analysis of cell and tissue histological images;
• Application of fractal analysis methods in neuroscience research;
• Fractal dimension as a complexity discrimination method between physiological and pathological conditions;
• Fractal analysis of various images and signals in medical diagnostics;
• Multi-fractal analysis of biomedical images;
• Utilization of related non-linear analysis methods in biomedical research.

Dr. Ivan Zaletel
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• fractal analysis
• fractal dimension
• complexity
• self-similarity
• neuroscience
• morphometry
• cell and tissue analysis