Recent studies proposed the use of Total Correlation to describe functional connectivity among brain regions as a multivariate alternative to conventional pairwise measures such as correlation or mutual information. In this work, we build on this idea to infer a large-scale (whole-brain) connectivity network based on Total Correlation and show the possibility of using this kind of network as biomarkers of brain alterations. In particular, this work uses Correlation Explanation (CorEx) to estimate Total Correlation. First, we prove that CorEx estimates of Total Correlation and clustering results are trustable compared to ground truth values. Second, the inferred large-scale connectivity network extracted from the more extensive open fMRI datasets is consistent with existing neuroscience studies, but, interestingly, can estimate additional relations beyond pairwise regions. And finally, we show how the connectivity graphs based on Total Correlation can also be an effective tool to aid in the discovery of brain diseases.
Keywords: CorEx; Total Correlation; biomarkers; fMRI; functional connectivity; large-scale connectome.