Topological Properties of Resting-State fMRI Functional Networks Improve Machine Learning-Based Autism Classification
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Automatic algorithms for disease diagnosis are being thoroughly researched for use in clinical settings. They usually rely on pre-identified biomarkers to highlight the existence of certain problems. However, finding such biomarkers for neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has challenged researchers for many years. With enough data and computational power, machine learning (ML) algorithms can be used to interpret the data and extract the best biomarkers from thousands of candidates. In this study, we used the fMRI data of 816 individuals enrolled in the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) to introduce a new biomarker extraction pipeline for ASD that relies on the use of graph theoretical metrics of fMRI-based functional connectivity to inform a support vector machine (SVM). Furthermore, we split the dataset into 5 age groups to account for the effect of aging on functional connectivity. Our methodology achieved better results than most state-of-the-art investigations on this dataset with the best model for the >30 years age group achieving an accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of 95, 97, and 95%, respectively. Our results suggest that measures of centrality provide the highest contribution to the classification power of the models.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".