Multi-modal classification of neurodegenerative disease by progressive graph-based transductive learning

Graph-based transductive learning (GTL) is a powerful machine learning technique that is used when sufficient training data is not available. In particular, conventional GTL approaches first construct a fixed inter-subject relation graph that is based on similarities in voxel intensity values in the feature domain, which can then be used to propagate the known phenotype data (i.e., clinical scores and labels) from the training data to the testing data in the label domain. However, this type of graph is exclusively learned in the feature domain, and primarily due to outliers in the observed features, may not be optimal for label propagation in the label domain. To address this limitation, a progressive GTL (pGTL) method is proposed that gradually finds an intrinsic data representation that more accurately aligns imaging features with the phenotype data. In general, optimal feature-to-phenotype alignment is achieved using an iterative approach that: (1) refines inter-subject relationships observed in the feature domain by using the learned intrinsic data representation in the label domain, (2) updates the intrinsic data representation from the refined inter-subject relationships, and (3) verifies the intrinsic data representation on the training data to guarantee an optimal classification when applied to testing data. Additionally, the iterative approach is extended to multi-modal imaging data to further improve pGTL classification accuracy. Using Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease study data, the classification accuracy of the proposed pGTL method is compared to several state-of-the-art classification methods, and the results show pGTL can more accurately identify subjects, even at different progression stages, in these two study data sets.