A probabilistic model for discovering high level brain activities from fMRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has provided an invaluable method of investing real time neuron activities. Statistical tools have been developed to recognise the mental state from a batch of fMRI observations over a period. However, an interesting question is whether it is possible to estimate the real time mental states at each moment during the fMRI observation. In this paper, we address this problem by building a probabilistic model of the brain activity. We model the tempo-spatial relations among the hidden high-level mental states and observable low-level neuron activities. We verify our model by experiments on practical fMRI data. The model also implies interesting clues on the task-responsible regions in the brain. © 2011 Springer-Verlag