Heterophily-Aware Spectral GCN for Population-Level Brain Disorder Prediction

Integrating resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and phenotypic data is a promising way to build a comprehensive population graph for the prediction of brain disorders using graph neural networks (GNNs). However, existing GNN-based methods face two limitations: the complexity of relationships between subjects poses challenges in constructing a well-defined population graph, and the inherent node heterophily within the population graph is often overlooked. To address them, we propose a population graph with a phenotypic encoder, which leverages rs-fMRI and phenotypic data to model complex relationships between subjects and enables GNN to learn population-level features. We also design a heterophily-aware spectral graph convolution network that incorporates local similarity-based learning to assess node homophily and addresses the heterophily issue. Experiments demonstrate that our method performs well in classifying both Alzheimer's Disease and Autism Spectrum Disorder. In addition, it can distinguish between progressive and stable mild cognitive impairment, facilitating timely interventions for the diseases.