22,059 research outputs found
Disentangling causal webs in the brain using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A review of current approaches
In the past two decades, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging has been used
to relate neuronal network activity to cognitive processing and behaviour.
Recently this approach has been augmented by algorithms that allow us to infer
causal links between component populations of neuronal networks. Multiple
inference procedures have been proposed to approach this research question but
so far, each method has limitations when it comes to establishing whole-brain
connectivity patterns. In this work, we discuss eight ways to infer causality
in fMRI research: Bayesian Nets, Dynamical Causal Modelling, Granger Causality,
Likelihood Ratios, LiNGAM, Patel's Tau, Structural Equation Modelling, and
Transfer Entropy. We finish with formulating some recommendations for the
future directions in this area
Knowing what you know in brain segmentation using Bayesian deep neural networks
In this paper, we describe a Bayesian deep neural network (DNN) for
predicting FreeSurfer segmentations of structural MRI volumes, in minutes
rather than hours. The network was trained and evaluated on a large dataset (n
= 11,480), obtained by combining data from more than a hundred different sites,
and also evaluated on another completely held-out dataset (n = 418). The
network was trained using a novel spike-and-slab dropout-based variational
inference approach. We show that, on these datasets, the proposed Bayesian DNN
outperforms previously proposed methods, in terms of the similarity between the
segmentation predictions and the FreeSurfer labels, and the usefulness of the
estimate uncertainty of these predictions. In particular, we demonstrated that
the prediction uncertainty of this network at each voxel is a good indicator of
whether the network has made an error and that the uncertainty across the whole
brain can predict the manual quality control ratings of a scan. The proposed
Bayesian DNN method should be applicable to any new network architecture for
addressing the segmentation problem.Comment: Submitted to Frontiers in Neuroinformatic
Nonparametric Bayes Modeling of Populations of Networks
Replicated network data are increasingly available in many research fields.
In connectomic applications, inter-connections among brain regions are
collected for each patient under study, motivating statistical models which can
flexibly characterize the probabilistic generative mechanism underlying these
network-valued data. Available models for a single network are not designed
specifically for inference on the entire probability mass function of a
network-valued random variable and therefore lack flexibility in characterizing
the distribution of relevant topological structures. We propose a flexible
Bayesian nonparametric approach for modeling the population distribution of
network-valued data. The joint distribution of the edges is defined via a
mixture model which reduces dimensionality and efficiently incorporates network
information within each mixture component by leveraging latent space
representations. The formulation leads to an efficient Gibbs sampler and
provides simple and coherent strategies for inference and goodness-of-fit
assessments. We provide theoretical results on the flexibility of our model and
illustrate improved performance --- compared to state-of-the-art models --- in
simulations and application to human brain networks
Network Plasticity as Bayesian Inference
General results from statistical learning theory suggest to understand not
only brain computations, but also brain plasticity as probabilistic inference.
But a model for that has been missing. We propose that inherently stochastic
features of synaptic plasticity and spine motility enable cortical networks of
neurons to carry out probabilistic inference by sampling from a posterior
distribution of network configurations. This model provides a viable
alternative to existing models that propose convergence of parameters to
maximum likelihood values. It explains how priors on weight distributions and
connection probabilities can be merged optimally with learned experience, how
cortical networks can generalize learned information so well to novel
experiences, and how they can compensate continuously for unforeseen
disturbances of the network. The resulting new theory of network plasticity
explains from a functional perspective a number of experimental data on
stochastic aspects of synaptic plasticity that previously appeared to be quite
puzzling.Comment: 33 pages, 5 figures, the supplement is available on the author's web
page http://www.igi.tugraz.at/kappe
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