Group-wise functional community detection through joint Laplacian diagonalization

Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2014;17(Pt 2):708-15. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-10470-6_88.

Abstract

There is a growing conviction that the understanding of the brain function can come through a deeper knowledge of the network connectivity between different brain areas. Resting state Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) is becoming one of the most important imaging modality widely used to understand network functionality. However, due to the variability at subject scale, mapping common networks across individuals is by now a real challenge. In this work we present a novel approach to group-wise community detection, i.e. identification of functional coherent sub-graphs across multiple subjects. This approach is based on a joint diagonalization of two or more graph Laplacians, aiming at finding a common eigenspace across individuals, over which clustering in fewer dimension can then be applied. This allows to identify common sub-networks across different graphs. We applied our method to rs-fMRI dataset of mouse brain finding most important sub-networks recently described in literature.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Animals
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Connectome / methods*
  • Image Enhancement / methods
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Nerve Net / physiology*
  • Pattern Recognition, Automated / methods*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Rest / physiology
  • Sensitivity and Specificity