Decentralized Analysis of Brain Imaging Data: Voxel-Based Morphometry and Dynamic Functional Network Connectivity

In the field of neuroimaging, there is a growing interest in developing collaborative frameworks that enable researchers to address challenging questions about the human brain by leveraging data across multiple sites all over the world. Additionally, efforts are also being directed at developing algorithms that enable collaborative analysis and feature learning from multiple sites without requiring the often large data to be centrally located. In this paper, we propose two new decentralized algorithms: (1) A decentralized regression algorithm for performing a voxel-based morphometry analysis on structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data and, (2) A decentralized dynamic functional network connectivity algorithm which includes decentralized group ICA and sliding-window analysis of functional MRI data. We compare results against those obtained from their pooled (or centralized) counterparts on the same data i.e., as if they are at one site. Results produced by the decentralized algorithms are similar to the pooled-case and showcase the potential of performing multi-voxel and multivariate analyses of data located at multiple sites. Such approaches enable many more collaborative and comparative analysis in the context of large-scale neuroimaging studies.