Recent applications of pattern recognition techniques on brain connectome
classification using functional connectivity (FC) neglect the non-Euclidean
topology and causal dynamics of brain connectivity across time. In this paper,
a deep probabilistic spatiotemporal framework developed based on variational
Bayes (DSVB) is proposed to learn time-varying topological structures in
dynamic brain FC networks for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) identification.
The proposed framework incorporates a spatial-aware recurrent neural network to
capture rich spatiotemporal patterns across dynamic FC networks, followed by a
fully-connected neural network to exploit these learned patterns for
subject-level classification. To overcome model overfitting on limited training
datasets, an adversarial training strategy is introduced to learn graph
embedding models that generalize well to unseen brain networks. Evaluation on
the ABIDE resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging dataset shows
that our proposed framework significantly outperformed state-of-the-art methods
in identifying ASD. Dynamic FC analyses with DSVB learned embeddings reveal
apparent group difference between ASD and healthy controls in network profiles
and switching dynamics of brain states