908 research outputs found
The generalized shrinkage estimator for the analysis of functional connectivity of brain signals
We develop a new statistical method for estimating functional connectivity
between neurophysiological signals represented by a multivariate time series.
We use partial coherence as the measure of functional connectivity. Partial
coherence identifies the frequency bands that drive the direct linear
association between any pair of channels. To estimate partial coherence, one
would first need an estimate of the spectral density matrix of the multivariate
time series. Parametric estimators of the spectral density matrix provide good
frequency resolution but could be sensitive when the parametric model is
misspecified. Smoothing-based nonparametric estimators are robust to model
misspecification and are consistent but may have poor frequency resolution. In
this work, we develop the generalized shrinkage estimator, which is a weighted
average of a parametric estimator and a nonparametric estimator. The optimal
weights are frequency-specific and derived under the quadratic risk criterion
so that the estimator, either the parametric estimator or the nonparametric
estimator, that performs better at a particular frequency receives heavier
weight. We validate the proposed estimator in a simulation study and apply it
on electroencephalogram recordings from a visual-motor experiment.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS396 the Annals of
Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Markov models for fMRI correlation structure: is brain functional connectivity small world, or decomposable into networks?
Correlations in the signal observed via functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(fMRI), are expected to reveal the interactions in the underlying neural
populations through hemodynamic response. In particular, they highlight
distributed set of mutually correlated regions that correspond to brain
networks related to different cognitive functions. Yet graph-theoretical
studies of neural connections give a different picture: that of a highly
integrated system with small-world properties: local clustering but with short
pathways across the complete structure. We examine the conditional independence
properties of the fMRI signal, i.e. its Markov structure, to find realistic
assumptions on the connectivity structure that are required to explain the
observed functional connectivity. In particular we seek a decomposition of the
Markov structure into segregated functional networks using decomposable graphs:
a set of strongly-connected and partially overlapping cliques. We introduce a
new method to efficiently extract such cliques on a large, strongly-connected
graph. We compare methods learning different graph structures from functional
connectivity by testing the goodness of fit of the model they learn on new
data. We find that summarizing the structure as strongly-connected networks can
give a good description only for very large and overlapping networks. These
results highlight that Markov models are good tools to identify the structure
of brain connectivity from fMRI signals, but for this purpose they must reflect
the small-world properties of the underlying neural systems
Small-Sample Analysis and Inference of Networked Dependency Structures from Complex Genomic Data
Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der statistischen Modellierung und Inferenz genetischer Netzwerke. Assoziationsstrukturen und wechselseitige Einflüsse sind ein wichtiges Thema in der Systembiologie. Genexpressionsdaten weisen eine hohe Dimensionalität auf, die geringen Stichprobenumfängen gegenübersteht ("small n, large p"). Die Analyse von Interaktionsstrukturen mit Hilfe graphischer Modelle ist demnach ein schlecht gestelltes (inverses) Problem, dessen Lösung Methoden zur Regularisierung erfordert. Ich schlage neuartige Schätzfunktionen für Kovarianzstrukturen und (partielle) Korrelationen vor. Diese basieren entweder auf Resampling-Verfahren oder auf Shrinkage zur Varianzreduktion. In der letzteren Methode wird die optimale Shrinkage Intensität analytisch berechnet. Im Vergleich zur klassischen Stichprobenkovarianzmatrix besitzt speziell diese Schätzfunktion wünschenswerte Eigenschaften im Sinne von gesteigerter Effizienz und von kleinerem mittleren quadratischen Fehler. Außerdem ergeben sich stets positiv definite und gut konditionierte Parameterschätzungen. Zur Bestimmung der Netzwerktopologie wird auf das Konzept graphischer Gaußscher Modelle zurückgegriffen, mit deren Hilfe sich sowohl marginale als auch bedingte Unabhängigkeiten darstellen lassen. Es wird eine Methode zur Modellselektion vorgestellt, die auf einer multiplen Testprozedur mit Kontrolle der False Discovery Rate beruht. Dabei wird die zugrunde liegende Nullverteilung adaptiv geschätzt. Das vorgeschlagene Framework ist rechentechnisch effizient und schneidet im Vergleich mit konkurrierenden Verfahren sowohl in Simulationen als auch in der Anwendung auf molekulare Daten sehr gut ab
Learning Graphical Models of Multivariate Functional Data with Applications to Neuroimaging
This dissertation investigates the functional graphical models that infer the functional connectivity based on neuroimaging data, which is noisy, high dimensional and has limited samples. The dissertation provides two recipes to infer the functional graphical model: 1) a fully Bayesian framework 2) an end-to-end deep model.
We first propose a fully Bayesian regularization scheme to estimate functional graphical models. We consider a direct Bayesian analog of the functional graphical lasso proposed by Qiao et al. (2019).. We then propose a regularization strategy via the graphical horseshoe. We compare both Bayesian approaches to the frequentist functional graphical lasso, and compare the Bayesian functional graphical lasso to the functional graphical horseshoe. We applied the proposed methods with electroencephalography (EEG) data and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data. We find that the Bayesian methods tend to outperform the standard functional graphical lasso, and that the functional graphical horseshoe performs best overall, a procedure for which there is no direct frequentist analog.
Then we consider a deep neural network architecture to estimate functional graphical models, by combining two simple off-the-shelf algorithms: adaptive functional principal components analysis (FPCA) Yao et al., 2021a) and convolutional graph estimator (Belilovsky et al., 2016). We train our proposed model with synthetic data which emulate the real world observations and prior knowledge. Based on synthetic data generation process, our model convert an inference problem as a supervised learning problem. Compared with other framework, our proposed deep model which offers a general recipe to infer the functional graphical model based on data-driven approach, take the raw functional dataset as input and avoid deriving sophisticated closed-form. Through simulation studies, we find that our deep functional graph model trained on synthetic data generalizes well and outperform other popular baselines marginally. In addition, we apply deep functional graphical model in the real world EEG data, and our proposed model discover meaningful brain connectivity.
Finally, we are interested in estimating casual graph with functional input. In order to process functional covariates in causal estimation, we leverage the similar strategy as our deep functional graphical model. We extend popular deep causal models to infer causal effects with functional confoundings within the potential outcomes framework. Our method is simple yet effective, where we validate our proposed architecture in variety of simulation settings. Our work offers an alternative way to do causal inference with functional data
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
Statistical Methods for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data
Understanding how the brain functions is one of the most important goals in science and medicine today. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a noninvasive, widely used technology for studying brain function in humans. While fMRI has great potential to shed light on cognitive development, decline and disorders, it also presents statistical and computational challenges due to a myriad of sources of noise and the large size of the data. In this thesis, I propose several methods to improve the analysis of resting-state fMRI, which is used to understand connectivity between different regions of the brain. Specifically, this thesis addresses two primary themes. First, I propose shrinkage estimators for functional connectivity, which improve reliability of subject-level estimates by "borrowing strength" across subjects. Second, I propose a method of identifying artifacts in fMRI data through a novel high-dimensional outlier detection method. The proposed methods can be used together and have the potential to significantly improve our understanding of brain connectivity at the subject level using resting-state fMRI
Bayesian Mixed Effect Sparse Tensor Response Regression Model with Joint Estimation of Activation and Connectivity
Brain activation and connectivity analyses in task-based functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments with multiple subjects are currently at
the forefront of data-driven neuroscience. In such experiments, interest often
lies in understanding activation of brain voxels due to external stimuli and
strong association or connectivity between the measurements on a set of
pre-specified group of brain voxels, also known as regions of interest (ROI).
This article proposes a joint Bayesian additive mixed modeling framework that
simultaneously assesses brain activation and connectivity patterns from
multiple subjects. In particular, fMRI measurements from each individual
obtained in the form of a multi-dimensional array/tensor at each time are
regressed on functions of the stimuli. We impose a low-rank PARAFAC
decomposition on the tensor regression coefficients corresponding to the
stimuli to achieve parsimony. Multiway stick breaking shrinkage priors are
employed to infer activation patterns and associated uncertainties in each
voxel. Further, the model introduces region specific random effects which are
jointly modeled with a Bayesian Gaussian graphical prior to account for the
connectivity among pairs of ROIs. Empirical investigations under various
simulation studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the method as a tool to
simultaneously assess brain activation and connectivity. The method is then
applied to a multi-subject fMRI dataset from a balloon-analog risk-taking
experiment in order to make inference about how the brain processes risk.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figure
Contributions to the study of Austism Spectrum Brain conectivity
164 p.Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a largely prevalent neurodevelopmental condition with a big social and economical impact affecting the entire life of families. There is an intense search for biomarkers that can be assessed as early as possible in order to initiate treatment and preparation of the family to deal with the challenges imposed by the condition. Brain imaging biomarkers have special interest. Specifically, functional connectivity data extracted from resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) should allow to detect brain connectivity alterations. Machine learning pipelines encompass the estimation of the functional connectivity matrix from brain parcellations, feature extraction and building classification models for ASD prediction. The works reported in the literature are very heterogeneous from the computational and methodological point of view. In this Thesis we carry out a comprehensive computational exploration of the impact of the choices involved while building these machine learning pipelines
A Bayesian alternative to mutual information for the hierarchical clustering of dependent random variables
The use of mutual information as a similarity measure in agglomerative
hierarchical clustering (AHC) raises an important issue: some correction needs
to be applied for the dimensionality of variables. In this work, we formulate
the decision of merging dependent multivariate normal variables in an AHC
procedure as a Bayesian model comparison. We found that the Bayesian
formulation naturally shrinks the empirical covariance matrix towards a matrix
set a priori (e.g., the identity), provides an automated stopping rule, and
corrects for dimensionality using a term that scales up the measure as a
function of the dimensionality of the variables. Also, the resulting log Bayes
factor is asymptotically proportional to the plug-in estimate of mutual
information, with an additive correction for dimensionality in agreement with
the Bayesian information criterion. We investigated the behavior of these
Bayesian alternatives (in exact and asymptotic forms) to mutual information on
simulated and real data. An encouraging result was first derived on
simulations: the hierarchical clustering based on the log Bayes factor
outperformed off-the-shelf clustering techniques as well as raw and normalized
mutual information in terms of classification accuracy. On a toy example, we
found that the Bayesian approaches led to results that were similar to those of
mutual information clustering techniques, with the advantage of an automated
thresholding. On real functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) datasets
measuring brain activity, it identified clusters consistent with the
established outcome of standard procedures. On this application, normalized
mutual information had a highly atypical behavior, in the sense that it
systematically favored very large clusters. These initial experiments suggest
that the proposed Bayesian alternatives to mutual information are a useful new
tool for hierarchical clustering
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