Back

Anchored Brownian motion and Bayesian methods for the analysis of single particle tracking data

Sgouralis, I.; Boles, A.; Shelby, S.; Pyron, R.

2026-04-22 biophysics
10.64898/2026.04.20.719631 bioRxiv
Show abstract

We present a novel statistical method and a prototype computational implementation for estimating the diffusion coefficient from single particle tracking (SPT) data. Our method is based on anchored Brownian motion which is a novel representation that relaxes the restrictions of conventional Brownian motion. Our method is fully developed in Bayesian terms and allows for robust estimation of diffusion coefficient and quantification of the uncertainly propagated from limited data quantity and quality as appropriate for the analysis of live-cell SPT data. We compare our methods with conventional Brownian motion and demonstrate superior performance in estimating the correct value of the diffusion coefficient. Finally, we benchmark our methods with SPT data from in cellulo and in silico experiments.

Matching journals

The top 7 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

1
PLOS ONE
4510 papers in training set
Top 13%
14.3%
2
PLOS Computational Biology
1633 papers in training set
Top 2%
12.5%
3
Scientific Reports
3102 papers in training set
Top 18%
6.4%
4
Nature Communications
4913 papers in training set
Top 33%
4.8%
5
Biophysical Journal
545 papers in training set
Top 1%
4.8%
6
Nucleic Acids Research
1128 papers in training set
Top 5%
4.2%
7
Bioinformatics
1061 papers in training set
Top 5%
4.0%
50% of probability mass above
8
Communications Biology
886 papers in training set
Top 2%
3.6%
9
Methods
29 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
3.1%
10
Nature Methods
336 papers in training set
Top 3%
2.9%
11
Physical Biology
43 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
2.7%
12
eLife
5422 papers in training set
Top 32%
2.6%
13
Biophysical Reports
36 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
2.1%
14
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
12 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
2.1%
15
BMC Bioinformatics
383 papers in training set
Top 4%
1.9%
16
Briefings in Bioinformatics
326 papers in training set
Top 4%
1.7%
17
Statistics in Medicine
34 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
0.9%
18
iScience
1063 papers in training set
Top 25%
0.9%
19
Journal of Neuroscience Methods
106 papers in training set
Top 1%
0.9%
20
Journal of The Royal Society Interface
189 papers in training set
Top 4%
0.9%
21
Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences
100 papers in training set
Top 4%
0.9%
22
The European Physical Journal Plus
13 papers in training set
Top 0.8%
0.7%
23
Journal of Cell Science
353 papers in training set
Top 2%
0.7%
24
Molecular Biology of the Cell
272 papers in training set
Top 3%
0.7%
25
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2130 papers in training set
Top 47%
0.6%