Predicting the fMRI Signal Fluctuation with Recurrent Neural Networks Trained on Vascular Network Dynamics

Resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) studies have revealed specific low-frequency hemodynamic signal fluctuations (<0.1 Hz) in the brain, which could be related to neuronal oscillations through the neurovascular coupling mechanism. Given the vascular origin of the fMRI signal, it remains challenging to separate the neural correlates of global rs-fMRI signal fluctuations from other confounding sources. However, the slow-oscillation detected from individual vessels by single-vessel fMRI presents strong correlation to neural oscillations. Here, we use recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to predict the future temporal evolution of the rs-fMRI slow oscillation from both rodent and human brains. The RNNs trained with vessel-specific rs-fMRI signals encode the unique brain oscillatory dynamic feature, presenting more effective prediction than the conventional autoregressive model. This RNN-based predictive modeling of rs-fMRI datasets from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) reveals brain state-specific characteristics, demonstrating an inverse relationship between the global rs-fMRI signal fluctuation with the internal default-mode network (DMN) correlation. The RNN prediction method presents a unique data-driven encoding scheme to specify potential brain state differences based on the global fMRI signal fluctuation, but not solely dependent on the global variance.