Toward stability of dynamic FC estimates in neuroimaging and electrophysiology: Solutions and limits

Time-varying functional connectivity (FC) methods are used to map the spatiotemporal organization of brain activity. However, their estimation can be unstable, in the sense that different runs of the inference may yield different solutions. But to draw meaningful relations to behavior, estimates must be robust and reproducible. Here, we propose two solutions using the hidden Markov model (HMM) as a descriptive model of time-varying FC. The first, best ranked HMM, involves running the inference multiple times and selecting the best model based on a quantitative measure combining fitness and model complexity. The second, hierarchical-clustered HMM, generates stable cluster state time series by applying hierarchical clustering to the state time series obtained from multiple runs. Experimental results on fMRI and magnetoencephalography data demonstrate that these approaches substantially improve the stability of time-varying FC estimations. Overall, hierarchical-clustered HMM is preferred when the inference variability is high, while the best ranked HMM performs better otherwise.