Hypergraph based Subnetwork Extraction using Fusion of Task and Rest Functional Connectivity

Functional subnetwork extraction is commonly used to explore the brain’s modular structure. However, reliable subnetwork extraction from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data remains challenging due to the pronounced noise in neuroimaging data. In this paper, we proposed a high order relation informed approach based on hypergraph to combine the information from multi-task data and resting state data to improve subnetwork extraction. Our assumption is that task data can be beneficial for the subnetwork extraction process, since the repeatedly activated nodes involved in diverse tasks might be the canonical network components which comprise pre-existing repertoires of resting state subnetworks [1]. Our proposed high order relation informed subnetwork extraction based on a strength information embedded hypergraph, (1) facilitates the multisource integration for subnetwork extraction, (2) utilizes information on relationships and changes between the nodes across different tasks, and (3) enables the study on higher order relations among brain network nodes. On real data, we demonstrated that fusing task activation, task-induced connectivity and resting state functional connectivity based on hypergraphs improves subnetwork extraction compared to employing a single source from either rest or task data in terms of subnetwork modularity measure, inter-subject reproducibility, along with more biologically meaningful subnetwork assignments.