Decoding Task-Related Functional Brain Imaging Data to Identify Developmental Disorders: The Case of Congenital Amusia

Philippe Albouy (1, 2) , Anne Caclin (3, 4) , Sam Norman-Haignere (5, 6) , Yohana Lévêque (4) , Isabelle Peretz (2) , Barbara Tillmann (4) , Robert J Zatorre (1, 2)

1 McGill University = Université McGill [Montréal, Canada]
2 BRAMS - International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research [Montréal, Canada]
3 DYCOG - Brain Dynamics and Cognition
4 CRNL - Centre de recherche en neurosciences de Lyon - Lyon Neuroscience Research Center
5 LSP - Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs
6 Columbia University [New York]

Machine learning classification techniques are frequently applied to structural and resting-state fMRI data to identify brain-based biomarkers for developmental disorders. However, task-related fMRI has rarely been used as a diagnostic tool. Here, we used structural MRI, resting-state connectivity and task-based fMRI data to detect congenital amusia, a pitch-specific developmental disorder. All approaches discriminated amusics from controls in meaningful brain networks at similar levels of accuracy. Interestingly, the classifier outcome was specific to deficit-related neural circuits, as the group classification failed for fMRI data acquired during a verbal task for which amusics were unimpaired. Most importantly, classifier outputs of task-related fMRI data predicted individual behavioral performance on an independent pitch-based task, while this relationship was not observed for structural or resting-state data. These results suggest that task-related imaging data can potentially be used as a powerful diagnostic tool to identify developmental disorders as they allow for the prediction of symptom severity.

Mots clés: brain-based biomarkers; diagnostic; multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA); rs-fMRI; sMRI; task-based fMRI; tone deafness

Domaines: Neurosciences [q-bio.NC]; Imagerie

Philippe Albouy, Anne Caclin, Sam Norman-Haignere, Yohana Lévêque, Isabelle Peretz, et al.. Decoding Task-Related Functional Brain Imaging Data to Identify Developmental Disorders: The Case of Congenital Amusia. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2019, 13, pp.1165. ⟨10.3389/fnins.2019.01165⟩. ⟨hal-02378148⟩