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arXiv · 2607.10931

Fast Whole-Brain, Geometry-Aware Functional Alignment for Cross-Subject Decoding

Pierre-Louis Barbarant·Florent Meyniel·Bertrand Thirion
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Abstract

Decoding brain activity is useful for characterizing brain processes and understanding the functional architecture underlying cognition. However, the inter-individual variability in brain response patterns limits the development of decoders that generalize across individuals. A solution to this challenge is functional alignment: aligning functional data across individuals before training population-level decoders. The core issue is to strike the balance between aligning functional features and preserving the anatomical structure, while maintaining computational efficiency. We introduce a new functional alignment method for fMRI, SpectralOT, that embeds cortical geometry into Laplace-Beltrami eigenmodes along functional data to regularize the alignment.

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Pierre-Louis Barbarant, Florent Meyniel, Bertrand Thirion. 2026-07-12. Fast Whole-Brain, Geometry-Aware Functional Alignment for Cross-Subject Decoding. https://doi.org/10.32470/gn6tuko

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