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Decoding disparity categories in 3-dimensional images from fMRI data using functional connectivity patterns

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Abstract

Humans use binocular disparity to extract depth information from two-dimensional retinal images in a process called stereopsis. Previous studies usually introduce the standard univariate analysis to describe the correlation between disparity level and brain activity within a given brain region based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Recently, multivariate pattern analysis has been developed to extract activity patterns across multiple voxels for deciphering categories of binocular disparity. However, the functional connectivity (FC) of patterns based on regions of interest or voxels and their mapping onto disparity category perception remain unknown. The present study extracted functional connectivity patterns for three disparity conditions (crossed disparity, uncrossed disparity, and zero disparity) at distinct spatial scales to decode the binocular disparity. Results of 27 subjects’ fMRI data demonstrate that FC features are more discriminatory than traditional voxel activity features in binocular disparity classification. The average binary classification of the whole brain and visual areas are respectively 87% and 79% at single subject level, and thus above the chance level (50%). Our research highlights the importance of exploring functional connectivity patterns to achieve a novel understanding of 3D image processing.

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Acknowledgements

This work of this paper is funded by the National Key Technologies R&D program (2017YFB1002502), and the project of Beijing Advanced Education Center for Future Education (BJAICFE2016IR-003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Information Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Chunyu Liu & Jiacai Zhang

  2. School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

    Yuan Li

  3. School of Education and Psychology, University of Jinan, Jinan, China

    Sutao Song

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  1. Chunyu Liu
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  2. Yuan Li
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  3. Sutao Song
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  4. Jiacai Zhang
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Correspondence to Jiacai Zhang.

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Liu, C., Li, Y., Song, S. et al. Decoding disparity categories in 3-dimensional images from fMRI data using functional connectivity patterns. Cogn Neurodyn 14, 169–179 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-019-09557-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-019-09557-6

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