Multichannel Deep Attention Neural Networks for the Classification of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Neuroimaging and Personal Characteristic Data

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that impacts more than 1.6% of children aged 8 across the United States. It is characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, as well as by a restricted repertoire of activity and interests. The current standardized cl...

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Main Authors: Ke Niu, Jiayang Guo, Yijie Pan, Xin Gao, Xueping Peng, Ning Li, Hailong Li
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2020-01-01
Series:Complexity
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/1357853
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author Ke Niu
Jiayang Guo
Yijie Pan
Xin Gao
Xueping Peng
Ning Li
Hailong Li
author_facet Ke Niu
Jiayang Guo
Yijie Pan
Xin Gao
Xueping Peng
Ning Li
Hailong Li
author_sort Ke Niu
collection DOAJ
description Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that impacts more than 1.6% of children aged 8 across the United States. It is characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, as well as by a restricted repertoire of activity and interests. The current standardized clinical diagnosis of ASD remains to be a subjective diagnosis, mainly relying on behavior-based tests. However, the diagnostic process for ASD is not only time consuming, but also costly, causing a tremendous financial burden for patients’ families. Therefore, automated diagnosis approaches have been an attractive solution for earlier identification of ASD. In this work, we set to develop a deep learning model for automated diagnosis of ASD. Specifically, a multichannel deep attention neural network (DANN) was proposed by integrating multiple layers of neural networks, attention mechanism, and feature fusion to capture the interrelationships in multimodality data. We evaluated the proposed multichannel DANN model on the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) repository with 809 subjects (408 ASD patients and 401 typical development controls). Our model achieved a state-of-the-art accuracy of 0.732 on ASD classification by integrating three scales of brain functional connectomes and personal characteristic data, outperforming multiple peer machine learning models in a k-fold cross validation experiment. Additional k-fold and leave-one-site-out cross validation were conducted to test the generalizability and robustness of the proposed multichannel DANN model. The results show promise for deep learning models to aid the future automated clinical diagnosis of ASD.
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spelling doaj-art-83c3bab270ee467f9f762d5ecc4ac32d2025-08-20T02:09:07ZengWileyComplexity1076-27871099-05262020-01-01202010.1155/2020/13578531357853Multichannel Deep Attention Neural Networks for the Classification of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Neuroimaging and Personal Characteristic DataKe Niu0Jiayang Guo1Yijie Pan2Xin Gao3Xueping Peng4Ning Li5Hailong Li6Computer School, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing 100101, ChinaDepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USANingbo Institute of Information Technology Application, CAS, Beijing, ChinaComputational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC), Computer Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955, Saudi ArabiaCAI, School of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, AustraliaComputer School, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing 100101, ChinaDepartment of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USAAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that impacts more than 1.6% of children aged 8 across the United States. It is characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, as well as by a restricted repertoire of activity and interests. The current standardized clinical diagnosis of ASD remains to be a subjective diagnosis, mainly relying on behavior-based tests. However, the diagnostic process for ASD is not only time consuming, but also costly, causing a tremendous financial burden for patients’ families. Therefore, automated diagnosis approaches have been an attractive solution for earlier identification of ASD. In this work, we set to develop a deep learning model for automated diagnosis of ASD. Specifically, a multichannel deep attention neural network (DANN) was proposed by integrating multiple layers of neural networks, attention mechanism, and feature fusion to capture the interrelationships in multimodality data. We evaluated the proposed multichannel DANN model on the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE) repository with 809 subjects (408 ASD patients and 401 typical development controls). Our model achieved a state-of-the-art accuracy of 0.732 on ASD classification by integrating three scales of brain functional connectomes and personal characteristic data, outperforming multiple peer machine learning models in a k-fold cross validation experiment. Additional k-fold and leave-one-site-out cross validation were conducted to test the generalizability and robustness of the proposed multichannel DANN model. The results show promise for deep learning models to aid the future automated clinical diagnosis of ASD.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/1357853
spellingShingle Ke Niu
Jiayang Guo
Yijie Pan
Xin Gao
Xueping Peng
Ning Li
Hailong Li
Multichannel Deep Attention Neural Networks for the Classification of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Neuroimaging and Personal Characteristic Data
Complexity
title Multichannel Deep Attention Neural Networks for the Classification of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Neuroimaging and Personal Characteristic Data
title_full Multichannel Deep Attention Neural Networks for the Classification of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Neuroimaging and Personal Characteristic Data
title_fullStr Multichannel Deep Attention Neural Networks for the Classification of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Neuroimaging and Personal Characteristic Data
title_full_unstemmed Multichannel Deep Attention Neural Networks for the Classification of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Neuroimaging and Personal Characteristic Data
title_short Multichannel Deep Attention Neural Networks for the Classification of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Neuroimaging and Personal Characteristic Data
title_sort multichannel deep attention neural networks for the classification of autism spectrum disorder using neuroimaging and personal characteristic data
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/1357853
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