Biology subjects

Salehi, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Salehi, M..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

There is no single functional atlas even for a single individual: Parcellation of the human brain is state dependent

The goal of human brain mapping has long been to delineate the functional subunits in the brain and elucidate the functional role of each of these brain regions. Recent work has focused on whole-brain parcellation of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data to identify these subunits and create a functional atlas. Functional connectivity approaches to understand the brain at the network level, require such an atlas to assess connections between nodes and extract network properties. While no single functional atlas has emerged as the dominant atlas to date, there remains an underlying assumption that such an atlas exists. Using fMRI data from a highly sampled subject as well as two independent replication data sets, we demonstrate that functional atlases reconfigure substantially and in a meaningful manner, according to brain state.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Exploring the prediction of emotional valence and pharmacologic effect across fMRI studies of antidepressants.

BackgroundClinically approved antidepressants modulate the brains emotional valence circuits, suggesting that the response of these circuits could serve as a biomarker for screening candidate antidepressant drugs. However, it is necessary that these modulations can be reliably detected. Here, we apply a cross-validated predictive model to classify emotional valence and pharmacologic effect across eleven task-based fMRI datasets (n=306) exploring the effect of antidepressant administration on emotional face processing.\n\nMethodsWe created subject-level contrast of parameter estimates of the emotional faces task and used the Shen whole-brain parcellation scheme to define 268 subject-level features that trained a cross-validated gradient-boosting machine protocol to classify emotional valence (fearful vs happy face visual conditions) and pharmacologic effect (drug vs placebo administration) within and across studies.\n\nResultsWe found patterns of brain activity that classify emotional valence with a statistically significant level of accuracy (70% across-all-subjects; range from 50-87% across-study). Our classifier failed to consistently discriminate drug from placebo. Subject population (healthy or unhealthy), treatment group (drug or placebo), and drug administration protocol (dose and duration) affected this accuracy with similar populations better predicting one another.\n\nConclusionsWe found limited evidence that antidepressants modulated brain response in a consistent manner, however found a consistent signature for emotional valence. Variable functional patterns across studies suggest that predictive modeling can inform biomarker development in mental health and in pharmacotherapy development. Our results suggest that case-controlled designs and more standardized protocols are required for functional imaging to provide robust biomarkers for drug development.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

State-specific individualized functional networks form a predictive signature of brain state

There is extensive evidence that human brain functional organization is dynamic, varying within a subject as the brain switches between tasks demands. This functional organization also varies across subjects, even when they are all engaged in similar tasks. Currently, we lack a comprehensive model that unifies the two dimensions of variation (brain state and subject). Using fMRI data obtained across multiple task-evoked and rest conditions (which we operationally define as brain states) and across multiple subjects, we develop a state-and subject-specific functional network parcellation (the assignment of nodes to networks). Our parcellation approach provides a measure of how node-to-network assignment (NNA) changes across states and across subjects. We demonstrate that the brains functional networks are not spatially fixed, but reconfigure with brain state. This reconfiguration is robust and reliable to such an extent that it can be used to predict brain state with accuracies up to 97%.

neuroscience↗