A short investigation of the effect of the selection of human brain atlases on the performance of ASD's classification models

This study investigated the impact of brain atlas selection on the classification accuracy of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) models using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. Brain atlases, such as AAL, CC200, Harvard-Oxford, and Yeo 7/17, are used to define regions of interest (ROIs) for fMRI analysis and play a crucial role in enabling researchers to study connectivity patterns and neural dynamics in ASD patients. Through a systematic review, we examined the performance of different atlases in various machine-learning and deep-learning frameworks for ASD classification. The results reveal that atlas selection significantly affects classification accuracy, with denser atlases, such as CC400, providing higher granularity, whereas coarser atlases such as AAL, offer computational efficiency. Furthermore, we discuss the dynamics of combining multiple atlases to enhance feature extraction and explore the implications of atlas selection across diverse datasets. Our findings emphasize the need for standardized approaches to atlas selection and highlight future research directions, including the integration of novel atlases, advanced data augmentation techniques, and end-to-end deep-learning models. This study provides valuable insights into optimizing fMRI-based ASD diagnosis and underscores the importance of interpreting atlas-specific features for an improved understanding of brain connectivity in ASD.