arXiv AI

BrainPFN: Amortized Brain-Behaviour Prediction via Prior-Data Fitted Networks

BrainPFN is a Prior Data Fitted Network that predicts behavioral phenotypes from functional MRI data without needing per-score or per-cohort refitting. It is meta-trained on a domain-specific prior derived from about 7,000 real functional connectivity matrices, generating one billion synthetic training samples. In tests across four independent cohorts, BrainPFN outperforms Kernel Ridge Regression on small-sample predictions and rivals larger foundation models, all while using a modest, publicly available training pool.

arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 24

A generalizable structural brain MRI foundation model built through dual-priority federated pretraining

BrainFedFM is a structural brain MRI foundation model that was federatively pretrained on 164,707 3‑D scans from 42 sites using a dual‑priority approach that emphasizes informative anatomical regions locally and prioritizes site contributions globally. The model outperformed seven baseline models—including four centralized foundation models—across 20 downstream tasks (classification, regression, segmentation), achieving a mean rank of 1.68 and a 50% performance gain, especially in classification and regression and among underrepresented populations. These results demonstrate the model’s generalizability and show that federated pretraining can effectively develop neuroimaging foundation models without pooling raw images.

By Zhen Yu, Yang Liu, Xiahai Zhuang, Qingchao Chen
arXiv AI
Sep 1

Federated Learning for MRI-based BrainAGE: a multicenter study on post-stroke functional outcome prediction

arXiv:2506.15626v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: $\textbf{Objective:}$ Brain-predicted age difference (BrainAGE) is a neuroimaging biomarker reflecting brain health. However, training robust...

By Vincent Roca, Marc Tommasi, Paul Andrey, Aur\'elien Bellet, Markus D. Schirmer, Hilde Henon, Laurent Puy, Julien Ramon, Gr\'egory Kuchcinski, Martin Bretzner, Renaud Lopes
arXiv AI
Jun 12

BrainDINO: A Brain MRI Foundation Model for Generalizable Clinical Representation Learning

arXiv:2604. 27277v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Brain MRI underpins a wide range of neuroscientific and clinical applications, yet most learning-based methods remain task-specific and require substantial labeled data.

By Yizhou Wu, Shansong Wang, Yuheng Li, Mojtaba Safari, Mingzhe Hu, Chih-Wei Chang, Harini Veeraraghavan, Xiaofeng Yang
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 9

BrainATCL: Adaptive Temporal Brain Connectivity Learning for Functional Link Prediction and Age Estimation

BrainATCL is an unsupervised, nonparametric framework that learns adaptive temporal brain connectivity from resting‑state fMRI data. It dynamically adjusts the lookback window for each snapshot based on newly added edges and encodes graph sequences with a GINE‑Mamba2 backbone, incorporating brain‑structure and function‑informed edge attributes. The method is evaluated on functional link prediction and age estimation, showing superior performance and strong generalization, even across sessions.

By Yiran Huang, Amirhossein Nouranizadeh, Christine Ahrends, Mengjia Xu
arXiv AI
Sep 28

Combining General and Domain-Specific Pretext Tasks for Brain MR Image Segmentation

The paper investigates combining a domain‑specific self‑supervised task—voxel‑level brain age prediction—with a general task—image inpainting—to pretrain models for brain MRI segmentation. A multitask pretraining framework jointly optimizes both objectives, yielding representations that outperform single‑task pretraining and training from scratch on three segmentation benchmarks (multiple sclerosis lesions, ischemic stroke lesions, and cortical structures). The study demonstrates that integrating domain‑specific and general self‑supervised tasks benefits the development of generalizable neuroimaging foundation models.

By Tasneem Nasser, Susanne Schmid, Roberto Souza, Naser El-Sheimy
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 16

Explainable Graph-theoretical Machine Learning with Application to Alzheimer's Disease Prediction

The paper introduces Explainable Graph-theoretical Machine Learning (XGML) to build individual metabolic brain graphs from FDG-PET data and identify subgraphs predictive of multivariate Alzheimer’s disease outcomes. Using ADNI data, the best model—kernel density estimation with Hellinger distance and random forest—achieved a Pearson correlation of 0.595 across eight cognitive scores, with the highest performance on ADAS13, ADAS11, and ADASQ4. Key edges were found to be jointly but differentially predictive, indicating potential network biomarkers for cognitive decline, though external validation on OASIS3 showed weaker performance likely due to cohort differences.

By Narmina Baghirova, Duy-Thanh V\~u, Duy-Cat Can, Christelle Schneuwly Diaz, Julien Bodlet, Guillaume Blanc, Georgi Hrusanov, Bernard Ries, Oliver Y. Ch\'en
arXiv AI
Oct 28

How Reliable Is Individualized Functional-Network Attribution in Resting-State fMRI Cognitive Prediction in ADNI?

The study assesses how reliably individualized functional‑network attribution can be derived from resting‑state fMRI data for predicting cognitive scores in the ADNI cohort. Using a frozen functional‑connectivity predictor trained on 875 subjects, the authors find that split‑half reliability is near‑ceiling, but scan‑rescan reliability drops significantly. Even under a mismatched‑subject null, correlations remain substantial, indicating a strong population‑shared pattern, yet matched pairs show a significant person‑specific component. The authors recommend reporting scan‑rescan reliability alongside a permutation‑null control to avoid overstating individual specificity.

By Sheethal Bhat, Mahfuzur Rahman Chowdhury, Imam Ahmed Shaik, Rose Dawn Bharath, Siming Bayer, Andreas Maier