Interpreting Age Effects of Human Fetal Brain from Spontaneous fMRI using Deep 3D Convolutional Neural Networks

Understanding human fetal neurodevelopment is of great clinical importance as abnormal development is linked to adverse neuropsychiatric outcomes after birth. Recent advances in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) have provided new insight into development of the human brain before birth, but these studies have predominately focused on brain functional connectivity (i.e. Fisher z-score), which requires manual processing steps for feature extraction from fMRI images. Deep learning approaches (i.e., Convolutional Neural Networks) have achieved remarkable success on learning directly from image data, yet have not been applied on fetal fMRI for understanding fetal neurodevelopment. Here, we bridge this gap by applying a novel application of deep 3D CNN to fetal blood oxygen-level dependence (BOLD) resting-state fMRI data. Specifically, we test a supervised CNN framework as a data-driven approach to isolate variation in fMRI signals that relate to younger v.s. older fetal age groups. Based on the learned CNN, we further perform sensitivity analysis to identify brain regions in which changes in BOLD signal are strongly associated with fetal brain age. The findings demonstrate that deep CNNs are a promising approach for identifying spontaneous functional patterns in fetal brain activity that discriminate age groups. Further, we discovered that regions that most strongly differentiate groups are largely bilateral, share similar distribution in older and younger age groups, and are areas of heightened metabolic activity in early human development.Comment: 9 page

FMRI correlates in autism spectrum disorder populations: evidence for intolerance of uncertainty

Recent estimates of prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in the United States exceeds 1.4%. Identifying neural correlates can provide important insight to help refine diagnosis, treatment, and understanding of ASD. A review of fMRI studies revealed activity and connectivity differences among brains of individuals with ASD compared to those without. Certain regions appear to activate differently based on task. In facial processing, hyperactivity of the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and insula is seen compared to controls, however the prefrontal cortex of individuals with ASD demonstrates hypoactivity in language processing and inhibition tasks. Studies on functional connectivity revealed both hypoconnectivity and hyperconnectivity of several brain regions. Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) describes a disposition toward incapacity for enduring that which is unknown or unpredictable. IU has been tied to restricted and repetitive behaviors seen in ASD. A review of fMRI studies on neural correlates of IU revealed hyperactivity of the insula with hypoactivity of the anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex. Through independently reviewing fMRI correlates of ASD and IU, it is revealed that the two share some patterns of altered activity and connectivity. It is thus proposed that IU can be an important conceptual framework for understanding ASD

Automatic Autism Spectrum Disorder Detection Using Artificial Intelligence Methods with MRI Neuroimaging: A Review

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a brain condition characterized by diverse signs and symptoms that appear in early childhood. ASD is also associated with communication deficits and repetitive behavior in affected individuals. Various ASD detection methods have been developed, including neuroimaging modalities and psychological tests. Among these methods, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) imaging modalities are of paramount importance to physicians. Clinicians rely on MRI modalities to diagnose ASD accurately. The MRI modalities are non-invasive methods that include functional (fMRI) and structural (sMRI) neuroimaging methods. However, the process of diagnosing ASD with fMRI and sMRI for specialists is often laborious and time-consuming; therefore, several computer-aided design systems (CADS) based on artificial intelligence (AI) have been developed to assist the specialist physicians. Conventional machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) are the most popular schemes of AI used for diagnosing ASD. This study aims to review the automated detection of ASD using AI. We review several CADS that have been developed using ML techniques for the automated diagnosis of ASD using MRI modalities. There has been very limited work on the use of DL techniques to develop automated diagnostic models for ASD. A summary of the studies developed using DL is provided in the appendix. Then, the challenges encountered during the automated diagnosis of ASD using MRI and AI techniques are described in detail. Additionally, a graphical comparison of studies using ML and DL to diagnose ASD automatically is discussed. We conclude by suggesting future approaches to detecting ASDs using AI techniques and MRI neuroimaging

Going Deep in Medical Image Analysis: Concepts, Methods, Challenges and Future Directions

Medical Image Analysis is currently experiencing a paradigm shift due to Deep Learning. This technology has recently attracted so much interest of the Medical Imaging community that it led to a specialized conference in `Medical Imaging with Deep Learning' in the year 2018. This article surveys the recent developments in this direction, and provides a critical review of the related major aspects. We organize the reviewed literature according to the underlying Pattern Recognition tasks, and further sub-categorize it following a taxonomy based on human anatomy. This article does not assume prior knowledge of Deep Learning and makes a significant contribution in explaining the core Deep Learning concepts to the non-experts in the Medical community. Unique to this study is the Computer Vision/Machine Learning perspective taken on the advances of Deep Learning in Medical Imaging. This enables us to single out `lack of appropriately annotated large-scale datasets' as the core challenge (among other challenges) in this research direction. We draw on the insights from the sister research fields of Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning etc.; where the techniques of dealing with such challenges have already matured, to provide promising directions for the Medical Imaging community to fully harness Deep Learning in the future