CodeCytos: AI-assisted spatial molecular imaging analysis via code-augmented agent action space

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Vo, Hung Q., Vo, Huy Q., Ly, Son T., Wan, Zhihao, Nguyen, Anh-Vu, Zhao, Hong, Sheng, Jianting, Wong, Stephen T. C., Nguyen, Hien V.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Vo, Hung Q.
Vo, Huy Q.
Ly, Son T.
Wan, Zhihao
Nguyen, Anh-Vu
Zhao, Hong
Sheng, Jianting
Wong, Stephen T. C.
Nguyen, Hien V.
author_facet Vo, Hung Q.
Vo, Huy Q.
Ly, Son T.
Wan, Zhihao
Nguyen, Anh-Vu
Zhao, Hong
Sheng, Jianting
Wong, Stephen T. C.
Nguyen, Hien V.
contents Conventional tissue image analysis software provides foundational capabilities for cellular analysis, including segmentation, basic morphological feature extraction, and spatial organization analysis. However, these tools often require manual intervention and are not well integrated with code-driven automation, limiting efficiency and scalability for complex spatial tissue studies. In addition, they offer limited flexibility for custom analyses, as they typically support only a fixed set of pre-implemented spatial cellular features. To address these limitations, we propose CodeCytos, a coding-based reasoning agent framework that enables dynamic, programmable interaction with spatial molecular imaging data to improve automation and customization. CodeCytos is designed to streamline the exploration of custom spatial cellular features and adapt to diverse research needs. We demonstrate its utility through case studies on four expert-curated datasets from distinct tissue types: frontal cortex, non-small-cell lung cancer, pancreas, and tonsil. We evaluate CodeCytos under a realistic minimal prompt setting, where bioscientists pose simple questions without task-specific instructions or contextual information about spatial cellular analysis, and benchmark multiple LLM backbones with strong coding capabilities. We further show that incorporating tailored, domain-agnostic few-shot in-context coding-reasoning examples (randomly sampled demonstrations outside the spatial analysis domain) can substantially improve performance without requiring costly, expert-crafted in-domain demonstrations. Overall, CodeCytos outperforms baseline approaches, highlighting the potential of code-action agents to assist with custom feature exploration in spatial molecular imaging and to accelerate biomarker discovery.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_00472
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CodeCytos: AI-assisted spatial molecular imaging analysis via code-augmented agent action space
Vo, Hung Q.
Vo, Huy Q.
Ly, Son T.
Wan, Zhihao
Nguyen, Anh-Vu
Zhao, Hong
Sheng, Jianting
Wong, Stephen T. C.
Nguyen, Hien V.
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
Machine Learning
Conventional tissue image analysis software provides foundational capabilities for cellular analysis, including segmentation, basic morphological feature extraction, and spatial organization analysis. However, these tools often require manual intervention and are not well integrated with code-driven automation, limiting efficiency and scalability for complex spatial tissue studies. In addition, they offer limited flexibility for custom analyses, as they typically support only a fixed set of pre-implemented spatial cellular features. To address these limitations, we propose CodeCytos, a coding-based reasoning agent framework that enables dynamic, programmable interaction with spatial molecular imaging data to improve automation and customization. CodeCytos is designed to streamline the exploration of custom spatial cellular features and adapt to diverse research needs. We demonstrate its utility through case studies on four expert-curated datasets from distinct tissue types: frontal cortex, non-small-cell lung cancer, pancreas, and tonsil. We evaluate CodeCytos under a realistic minimal prompt setting, where bioscientists pose simple questions without task-specific instructions or contextual information about spatial cellular analysis, and benchmark multiple LLM backbones with strong coding capabilities. We further show that incorporating tailored, domain-agnostic few-shot in-context coding-reasoning examples (randomly sampled demonstrations outside the spatial analysis domain) can substantially improve performance without requiring costly, expert-crafted in-domain demonstrations. Overall, CodeCytos outperforms baseline approaches, highlighting the potential of code-action agents to assist with custom feature exploration in spatial molecular imaging and to accelerate biomarker discovery.
title CodeCytos: AI-assisted spatial molecular imaging analysis via code-augmented agent action space
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.00472