Paul J. Laurienti

Jiaqi Ding, Tingting Dan, Ziquan Wei et al.

An unprecedented amount of existing functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data provides a new opportunity to understand the relationship between functional fluctuation and human cognition/behavior using a data-driven approach. To that end, tremendous efforts have been made in machine learning to predict cognitive states from evolving volumetric images of blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals. Due to the complex nature of brain function, however, the evaluation on learning performance and discoveries are not often consistent across current state-of-the-arts (SOTA). By capitalizing on large-scale existing neuroimaging data (34,887 data samples from six public databases), we seek to establish a well-founded empirical guideline for designing deep models for functional neuroimages by linking the methodology underpinning with knowledge from the neuroscience domain. Specifically, we put the spotlight on (1) What is the current SOTA performance in cognitive task recognition and disease diagnosis using fMRI? (2) What are the limitations of current deep models? and (3) What is the general guideline for selecting the suitable machine learning backbone for new neuroimaging applications? We have conducted a comprehensive evaluation and statistical analysis, in various settings, to answer the above outstanding questions.

Jiazhou Chen, Guoqiang Han, Hongmin Cai et al.

Converging evidence shows that disease-relevant brain alterations do not appear in random brain locations, instead, its spatial pattern follows large scale brain networks. In this context, a powerful network analysis approach with a mathematical foundation is indispensable to understand the mechanism of neuropathological events spreading throughout the brain. Indeed, the topology of each brain network is governed by its native harmonic waves, which are a set of orthogonal bases derived from the Eigen-system of the underlying Laplacian matrix. To that end, we propose a novel connectome harmonic analysis framework to provide enhanced mathematical insights by detecting frequency-based alterations relevant to brain disorders. The backbone of our framework is a novel manifold algebra appropriate for inference across harmonic waves that overcomes the limitations of using classic Euclidean operations on irregular data structures. The individual harmonic difference is measured by a set of common harmonic waves learned from a population of individual Eigen systems, where each native Eigen-system is regarded as a sample drawn from the Stiefel manifold. Specifically, a manifold optimization scheme is tailored to find the common harmonic waves which reside at the center of Stiefel manifold. To that end, the common harmonic waves constitute the new neuro-biological bases to understand disease progression. Each harmonic wave exhibits a unique propagation pattern of neuro-pathological burdens spreading across brain networks. The statistical power of our novel connectome harmonic analysis approach is evaluated by identifying frequency-based alterations relevant to Alzheimer's disease, where our learning-based manifold approach discovers more significant and reproducible network dysfunction patterns compared to Euclidian methods.