GAMing the Brain: Investigating the Cross-modal Relationships between Functional Connectivity and Structural Features...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Brain Imaging
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Functional connectivity (FC) is vital for cognition, but its link to structural brain features is unclear.
• Existing methods struggle to fully integrate diverse structural information to explain FC variations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel analysis method integrating multiple structural factors to explain functional connectivity variation.
• To assess the repeatability and subject discriminability of the proposed structure-function regression models.

Main Methods:

• Utilized generalized additive models (GAMs) to integrate anatomical morphology, voxel intensity, diffusion data, and geographic distance.
• Employed region-pair or vertex-pair analysis, accounting for individual subject differences.
• Assessed model repeatability using subject discriminability metrics on Human Connectome Project data (twin and non-twin pairs).

Main Results:

• Direct structure/function regression models significantly explain variations in functional connectivity.
• The proposed GAM-based approach demonstrates high repeatability and subject discriminability.
• Analysis of twin and non-twin pairs confirmed the robustness of the model-based connectivity patterns.

Conclusions:

• Integrating structural information via GAMs provides a powerful approach to understanding functional connectivity.
• The findings offer insights into the underlying mechanisms of brain connectivity and individual differences.
• This method advances the study of brain structure-function relationships and their repeatability.