STNAGNN: Data-driven Spatio-temporal Brain Connectivity beyond FC

Jiyao Wang, Nicha C Dvornek, Peiyu Duan, Lawrence H. Staib, Pamela Ventola, James s Duncan

Keywords: Graph Neural Network, Functional MRI, Spatio-temporal learning

TL;DR: A Task-aware spatio-temporal GNN architecture for fMRI analysis

Abstract:

In recent years, graph neural networks (GNNs) have been widely applied in the analysis of brain fMRI, yet defining the connectivity between ROIs remains a challenge in noisy fMRI data. Among all approaches, Functional Connectome (FC) is the most popular
method. Computed by the correlation coefficients between ROI time series, FC is a powerful and computationally efficient way to estimate ROI connectivity. However, it is well known for neglecting structural connections and causality in ROI interactions. Also, FC
becomes much more noisy in the short spatio-temporal sliding-window subsequences of fMRI. Effective Connectome (EC) is proposed as a directional alternative, but it is difficult to accurately estimate. Furthermore, for optimal GNN performance, usually only a small percentage of the strongest connections are selected as sparse edges, resulting in oversimplification of complex brain connections. To tackle these challenges, we propose the Spatio-Temporal Node Attention Graph Neural Network (STNAGNN) as a data-driven alternative that combines sparse predefined FC with dense data-driven spatio-temporal connections, allowing for flexible and spatio-temporal learning of ROI interaction patterns.

Primary Subject Area: Detection and Diagnosis

Secondary Subject Area: Interpretability and Explainable AI

Paper Type: Methodological Development

Registration Requirement: Yes

Submission Number: 29