Active Learning Pipeline for Brain Mapping in a High Performance Computing Environment

This paper describes a scalable active learning pipeline prototype for large-scale brain mapping that leverages high performance computing power. It enables high-throughput evaluation of algorithm results, which, after human review, are used for iterative machine learning model training. Image processing and machine learning are performed in a batch layer. Benchmark testing of image processing using pMATLAB shows that a 100x increase in throughput (10,000%) can be achieved while total processing time only increases by 9% on Xeon-G6 CPUs and by 22% on Xeon-E5 CPUs, indicating robust scalability. The images and algorithm results are provided through a serving layer to a browser-based user interface for interactive review. This pipeline has the potential to greatly reduce the manual annotation burden and improve the overall performance of machine learning-based brain mapping.