Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, United States of America.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Apr 21;17(4):e0267456. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267456. eCollection 2022.
Functional connectivity has been demonstrated to be varying over time during sensory and cognitive processes. Quantitative examinations of such variations can significantly advance our understanding on large-scale functional organizations and their topological dynamics that support normal brain functional connectome and can be altered in individuals with brain disorders. However, toolboxes that integrate the complete functions for analyzing task-related brain functional connectivity, functional network topological properties, and their dynamics, are still lacking. The current study has developed a MATLAB toolbox, the Graph Theoretical Analysis of Task-Related Functional Dynamics (GAT-FD), which consists of four modules for sliding-window analyses, temporal mask generation, estimations of network properties and dynamics, and result display, respectively. All the involved functions have been tested and validated using functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected from human subjects when performing a block-designed task. The results demonstrated that the GAT-FD allows for effective and quantitative evaluations of the functional network properties and their dynamics during the task period. As an open-source and user-friendly package, the GAT-FD and its detailed user manual are freely available at https://www.nitrc.org/projects/gat_fd and https://centers.njit.edu/cnnl/gat_fd/.
功能连接在感觉和认知过程中随时间变化已得到证实。对这些变化的定量研究可以显著增进我们对支持正常大脑功能连接体的大规模功能组织及其拓扑动力学的理解，也可以揭示大脑疾病患者的功能连接体的变化。然而，集成了用于分析与任务相关的大脑功能连接、功能网络拓扑性质及其动力学的完整功能的工具箱仍然缺乏。本研究开发了一个 MATLAB 工具箱，即基于滑动窗口分析的任务相关功能动态的图论分析（Graph Theoretical Analysis of Task-Related Functional Dynamics，GAT-FD），它由四个模块组成，分别用于滑动窗口分析、时间掩模生成、网络性质和动力学的估计以及结果显示。使用在人类被试执行块设计任务时采集的功能磁共振成像数据对所有涉及的功能进行了测试和验证。结果表明，GAT-FD 允许在任务期间对功能网络性质及其动力学进行有效和定量的评估。作为一个开源和用户友好的软件包，GAT-FD 及其详细的用户手册可在 https://www.nitrc.org/projects/gat_fd 和 https://centers.njit.edu/cnnl/gat_fd/ 上免费获得。
