arXiv subjects

Yutong Mao

Publications and source records attributed to Yutong Mao.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Data-Driven Modeling of Spatiotemporal Dynamics Using Multimodal Imaging Data

Understanding how biological systems evolve across space and time remains a fundamental challenge, particularly when dynamic processes vary substantially across individuals. We present a personalized graph-based dynamical modeling framework for characterizing spatiotemporal biological dynamics from longitudinal multimodal imaging data. The framework constructs individualized brain graphs from MRI and PET measurements and learns patient-specific dynamical parameters governing regional structural and molecular changes. Applied to 1,891 participants from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, the model captures the coordinated evolution of amyloid-$β$, tau, neurodegeneration, and cognition and accurately predicts their future trajectories, outperforming established clinical and neuroimaging benchmarks. Patient-specific dynamical parameters reveal distinct patterns of biological progression and provide improved prediction of future cognitive decline compared with standard biomarkers. Sensitivity analysis further identifies regional network features associated with the propagation of pathological and structural changes, recovering known temporolimbic and frontal vulnerability patterns. These results demonstrate how data-driven dynamical modeling can integrate multimodal longitudinal measurements to uncover individualized spatiotemporal patterns and latent mechanisms of biological change. The framework provides a quantitative approach for studying complex biological dynamics across heterogeneous individuals and establishes a foundation for personalized modeling of progressive biological processes.

q-bio.NC↗

arXiv2025

Learning Patient-Specific Spatial Biomarker Dynamics via Operator Learning for Alzheimer's Disease Progression

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex, multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder with substantial heterogeneity in progression and treatment response. Despite recent therapeutic advances, predictive models capable of accurately forecasting individualized disease trajectories remain limited. Here, we present a machine learning-based operator learning framework for personalized modeling of AD progression, integrating longitudinal multimodal imaging, biomarker, and clinical data. Unlike conventional models with prespecified dynamics, our approach directly learns patient-specific disease operators governing the spatiotemporal evolution of amyloid, tau, and neurodegeneration biomarkers. Using Laplacian eigenfunction bases, we construct geometry-aware neural operators capable of capturing complex brain dynamics. Embedded within a digital twin paradigm, the framework enables individualized predictions, simulation of therapeutic interventions, and in silico clinical trials. Applied to AD clinical data, our method achieves high prediction accuracy exceeding 90% across multiple biomarkers, substantially outperforming existing approaches. This work offers a scalable, interpretable platform for precision modeling and personalized therapeutic optimization in neurodegenerative diseases.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2024

BrainMAE: A Region-aware Self-supervised Learning Framework for Brain Signals

The human brain is a complex, dynamic network, which is commonly studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and modeled as network of Regions of interest (ROIs) for understanding various brain functions. Recent studies utilize deep learning approaches to learn the brain network representation based on functional connectivity (FC) profile, broadly falling into two main categories. The Fixed-FC approaches, utilizing the FC profile which represents the linear temporal relation within the brain network, are limited by failing to capture informative brain temporal dynamics. On the other hand, the Dynamic-FC approaches, modeling the evolving FC profile over time, often exhibit less satisfactory performance due to challenges in handling the inherent noisy nature of fMRI data. To address these challenges, we propose Brain Masked Auto-Encoder (BrainMAE) for learning representations directly from fMRI time-series data. Our approach incorporates two essential components: a region-aware graph attention mechanism designed to capture the relationships between different brain ROIs, and a novel self-supervised masked autoencoding framework for effective model pre-training. These components enable the model to capture rich temporal dynamics of brain activity while maintaining resilience to inherent noise in fMRI data. Our experiments demonstrate that BrainMAE consistently outperforms established baseline methods by significant margins in four distinct downstream tasks. Finally, leveraging the model's inherent interpretability, our analysis of model-generated representations reveals findings that resonate with ongoing research in the field of neuroscience.

q-bio.QM↗