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LifeVolume 13, Issue 10, October 2023, Article number 2075

Statistical Approaches to Identify Pairwise and High-Order Brain Functional Connectivity Signatures on a Single-Subject Basis(Article)(Open Access)

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  • aDepartment of Engineering, University of Palermo, Palermo, 90128, Italy
  • bFaculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, 21102, Serbia
  • cRadiology Service, IRCCS-ISMETT, Palermo, 90127, Italy
  • dNeurology Service, IRCCS-ISMETT, Palermo, 90127, Italy
  • eDepartment for the Treatment and Study of Pediatric Abdominal Diseases and Abdominal Transplantation, IRCCS-ISMETT, Palermo, 90127, Italy
  • fRadiology Service, BiND, University of Palermo, Palermo, 90128, Italy

Abstract

Keeping up with the shift towards personalized neuroscience essentially requires the derivation of meaningful insights from individual brain signal recordings by analyzing the descriptive indexes of physio-pathological states through statistical methods that prioritize subject-specific differences under varying experimental conditions. Within this framework, the current study presents a methodology for assessing the value of the single-subject fingerprints of brain functional connectivity, assessed both by standard pairwise and novel high-order measures. Functional connectivity networks, which investigate the inter-relationships between pairs of brain regions, have long been a valuable tool for modeling the brain as a complex system. However, their usefulness is limited by their inability to detect high-order dependencies beyond pairwise correlations. In this study, by leveraging multivariate information theory, we confirm recent evidence suggesting that the brain contains a plethora of high-order, synergistic subsystems that would go unnoticed using a pairwise graph structure. The significance and variations across different conditions of functional pairwise and high-order interactions (HOIs) between groups of brain signals are statistically verified on an individual level through the utilization of surrogate and bootstrap data analyses. The approach is illustrated on the single-subject recordings of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rest-fMRI) signals acquired using a pediatric patient with hepatic encephalopathy associated with a portosystemic shunt and undergoing liver vascular shunt correction. Our results show that (i) the proposed single-subject analysis may have remarkable clinical relevance for subject-specific investigations and treatment planning, and (ii) the possibility of investigating brain connectivity and its post-treatment functional developments at a high-order level may be essential to fully capture the complexity and modalities of the recovery. © 2023 by the authors.

Author keywords

bootstrap validationfunctional connectivityhigh-order interactionssingle-subject analysissurrogate data analysis

Funding details

Funding sponsor Funding number Acronym
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della RicercaMIUR
  • 1

    The present work was supported by the European Union-NextGenerationEU\u2014funds from Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR), D.M. 737/2021\u2014research project \u201CNovel Computational tools for Patient Stratification in cardiovascular diseases and brain disorders\u201D.

  • ISSN: 20751729
  • Source Type: Journal
  • Original language: English
  • DOI: 10.3390/life13102075
  • Document Type: Article
  • Publisher: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)

  Sparacia, G.; Radiology Service, IRCCS-ISMETT, Palermo, Italy;
© Copyright 2024 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Cited by 9 documents

Sparacino, L. , Antonacci, Y. , Mijatovic, G.
Measuring hierarchically-organized interactions in dynamic networks through spectral entropy rates: Theory, estimation, and illustrative application to physiological networks
(2025) Neurocomputing
Sparacia, G. , Parla, G. , Miraglia, R.
Brain Functional Connectivity Significantly Improves After Surgical Eradication of Porto-Systemic Shunting in Pediatric Patients
(2025) Life
Mijatovic, G. , Antonacci, Y. , Javorka, M.
Network Representation of Higher-Order Interactions Based on Information Dynamics
(2025) IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering
View details of all 9 citations
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