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Unsupervised learning of acquisition variability in structural connectomes via hybrid latent space modeling

Summary

A novel unsupervised framework removes manual capacity tuning through architectural annealing, allowing a hybrid discrete-continuous latent model to adaptively separate acquisition-related effects from biological variation in dMRI structural connectomes. Evaluated on 7,416 connectomes (ages 2-102, 13 studies, 25 acquisition parameter combinations), architectural annealing achieves stronger site learning (ARI=0.53, p<0.05) than baseline models.

SourcearXiv Machine LearningAuthor: Gaurav Rudravaram, Lianrui Zuo, Karthik Ramadass, Elyssa McMaster, Jongyeon Yoon, Aravind R. Krishnan, Adam M. Saunders, Chenyu Gao, Nancy R. Newlin, Praitayini Kanakaraj, Lori L. Beason Held, Murat Bilgel, Laura A. Barquero, Micah DArchangel, Tin Q. Nguyen, Laurie B. Cutting, Derek Archer, Timothy J. Hohman, Daniel C. Moyer, Bennett A. Landman
Unsupervised learning of acquisition variability in structural connectomes via hybrid latent space modeling
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[2605.13933] Unsupervised learning of acquisition variability in structural connectomes via hybrid latent space modeling

[Submitted on 13 May 2026]

Title:Unsupervised learning of acquisition variability in structural connectomes via hybrid latent space modeling

View a PDF of the paper titled Unsupervised learning of acquisition variability in structural connectomes via hybrid latent space modeling, by Gaurav Rudravaram and 19 other authors

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Abstract:Acquisition differences across sites, scanners, and protocols in dMRI introduce variability that complicates structural connectome analysis. This motivates deep learning models that can represent high-dimensional connectomes in a low-dimensional space while explicitly separating acquisition-related effects from biological variation. Conventional dimensionality reduction methods model all variance as continuous, so acquisition effects often get absorbed into a continuous latent space. Recent hybrid latent-space models combine discrete and continuous components to address this, but typically require manual capacity tuning to ensure the discrete component captures the intended variability. We introduce an unsupervised framework that removes this manual tuning by architecturally annealing encoder outputs before decoding, allowing the model to adaptively balance discrete and continuous latent variables during training. To evaluate it, we curated a dataset of N=7,416 structural connectomes derived from dMRI, spanning ages 2 to 102 and 13 studies with 25 unique acquisition-parameter combinations. Of these, 5,900 are cognitively unimpaired, 877 have mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 639 have Alzheimer's disease (AD). We compare against a standard VAE, PCA with k-means clustering, and hybrid models that anneal only through the loss function. Our architectural annealing produces stronger site learning (ARI=0.53, p

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Key points

  • Joint-VAE with architectural annealing eliminates manual tuning of discrete vs. continuous latent capacity.
  • On 7,416 dMRI connectomes, architectural annealing achieves ARI=0.53, significantly outperforming VAE, PCA+k-means, and loss-based annealing.
  • Model recovers clusters aligned with scanner and protocol differences, separating acquisition variability from biological factors.

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