PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Siyuan Gao
AU  - Gal Mishne
AU  - Dustin Scheinost
TI  - Non-linear manifold learning in fMRI uncovers a low-dimensional space of brain dynamics
AID  - 10.1101/2020.11.25.398693
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.11.25.398693
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/27/2020.11.25.398693.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/27/2020.11.25.398693.full
AB  - Large-scale brain dynamics are believed to lie in a latent, low-dimensional space. Typically, the embeddings of brain scans are derived independently from different cognitive tasks or resting-state data, ignoring a potentially large—and shared—portion of this space. Here, we establish that a shared, robust, and interpretable low-dimensional space of brain dynamics can be recovered from a rich repertoire of task based fMRI data. This occurs when relying on non-linear approaches as opposed to traditional linear methods. The embedding maintains proper temporal progression of the tasks, revealing brain states and the dynamics of network integration. We demonstrate that resting-state data embeds fully onto the same task embedding, indicating similar brain states are present in both task and resting-state data. Our findings suggest analysis of fMRI data from multiple cognitive tasks in a low-dimensional space is possible and desirable, and our proposed framework can thus provide an interpretable framework to investigate brain dynamics in the low-dimensional space.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.