Collaborative Research: NCS-FO: Dynamic Brain Graph Mining

将人脑中的连接映射为网络系统，即，脑图，已经成为神经科学中一个普遍的范例。在认知发展，衰老和疾病中，了解大脑的结构和功能如何随时间变化，以深入了解个体差异以及不同行为和疾病的机制至关重要。然而，传统的模型大多将大脑图视为“静态”，忽略了随着时间的推移而发生的潜在变化。该项目旨在开发新的方法来模拟脑图的动态，这些方法在生成准确，可解释和公平的预测方面是强大的。这一跨学科项目将为参与的研究人员提供独特的培训组合，研究成果将纳入教育。研究人员将通过一个已建立的基准平台、新的出版物、教程以及与领域专家的合作来传播他们的研究结果。该项目旨在克服现有静态脑图模型的障碍，并为处理和分析来自动态神经影像数据的复杂脑图开发实用基础和计算工具。该项目将开发脑图常微分方程（BrainGDE）的统一框架，将先进的深度图学习技术和常微分方程交织在一起，解决数据复杂性、模型可解释性、公平性和可信度以及临床转型等挑战。计划的研究任务将集中在：（1）单峰动态脑图挖掘，（2）多模态动态脑图挖掘，（3）临床研究，与领域专家合作。如果成功，这项研究将重塑生物信息学和医疗保健技术中时态数据挖掘的深度学习方法。本项目建立的动态图挖掘框架也将指导感知、知识发现、推理、该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Mapping the connections in human brains as networked systems, i.e., brain graphs, has become a pervasive paradigm in neuroscience. In cognitive development, aging, and disease, it is crucial to understand how the structures and functions of the brain change over time to provide insights into individual differences and the mechanisms underlying different behaviors and disorders. Traditional models, however, mostly treat the brain graphs as “static,” ignoring the underlying changes over time. This project aims to develop new methods for modeling the dynamics of brain graphs that are robust in generating accurate, interpretable, and fair predictions. This interdisciplinary project will provide a unique mix of training for the participating researchers, and the research findings will be incorporated into education. The investigators will disseminate their findings through an established benchmark platform, new publications, tutorials, and collaborations with domain experts.This project seeks to overcome the barriers of existing static brain graph models and develop practical foundations and computational tools for processing and analyzing complex brain graphs derived from dynamic neuroimaging data. The project will develop a unified framework of Brain Graph Ordinary Differential Equations (BrainGDE) interweaving advanced deep graph learning techniques and ordinary differential equations, addressing the challenges of data complexity, model interpretability, fairness and trustworthiness, as well as clinical transformation. Planned research tasks will focus on: (1) unimodal dynamic brain graph mining, (2) multimodal dynamic brain graph mining, and (3) clinical investigations, in collaboration with domain experts. If successful, this research will reshape deep learning approaches for temporal data mining in bioinformatics and healthcare technologies. The dynamic graph mining framework established in this project will also guide research on the problems of sensing, knowledge discovery, reasoning, and inference on high-dimensional dynamic data with structures and will serve as a universal benchmark for future work in this direction.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.