Improved fMRI-based pain prediction using Bayesian group-wise functional registration

In recent years, the field of neuroimaging has undergone a paradigm shift, moving away from the traditional brain mapping approach towards the development of integrated, multivariate brain models that can predict categories of mental events. However, large interindividual differences in both brain anatomy and functional localization after standard anatomical alignment remain a major limitation in performing this type of analysis, as it leads to feature misalignment across subjects in subsequent predictive models. This article addresses this problem by developing and validating a new computational technique for reducing misalignment across individuals in functional brain systems by spatially transforming each subject's functional data to a common latent template map. Our proposed Bayesian functional group-wise registration approach allows us to assess differences in brain function across subjects and individual differences in activation topology. We achieve the probabilistic registration with inverse-consistency by utilizing the generalized Bayes framework with a loss function for the symmetric group-wise registration. It models the latent template with a Gaussian process, which helps capture spatial features in the template, producing a more precise estimation. We evaluate the method in simulation studies and apply it to data from an fMRI study of thermal pain, with the goal of using functional brain activity to predict physical pain. We find that the proposed approach allows for improved prediction of reported pain scores over conventional approaches. Received on 2 January 2017. Editorial decision on 8 June 2021.