BigBrain 3D atlas of cortical layers: Cortical and laminar thickness gradients diverge in sensory and motor cortices
Konrad Wagstyl
Stéphanie Larocque
Guillem Cucurull
Claude Lepage
Joseph Paul Cohen
Sebastian Bludau
Nicola Palomero-Gallagher
L. Lewis
Thomas Funck
Hannah Spitzer
Timo Dicksheid
Paul C Fletcher
Karl Zilles
Katrin Amunts
Alan C. Evans
Histological atlases of the cerebral cortex, such as those made famous by Brodmann and von Economo, are invaluable for understanding human b… (voir plus)rain microstructure and its relationship with functional organization in the brain. However, these existing atlases are limited to small numbers of manually annotated samples from a single cerebral hemisphere, measured from 2D histological sections. We present the first whole-brain quantitative 3D laminar atlas of the human cerebral cortex. This atlas was derived from a 3D histological model of the human brain at 20 micron isotropic resolution (BigBrain), using a convolutional neural network to segment, automatically, the cortical layers in both hemispheres. Our approach overcomes many of the historical challenges with measurement of histological thickness in 2D and the resultant laminar atlas provides an unprecedented level of precision and detail. We utilized this BigBrain cortical atlas to test whether previously reported thickness gradients, as measured by MRI in sensory and motor processing cortices, were present in a histological atlas of cortical thickness, and which cortical layers were contributing to these gradients. Cortical thickness increased across sensory processing hierarchies, primarily driven by layers III, V and VI. In contrast, fronto-motor cortices showed the opposite pattern, with decreases in total and pyramidal layer thickness. These findings illustrate how this laminar atlas will provide a link between single-neuron morphology, mesoscale cortical layering, macroscopic cortical thickness and, ultimately, functional neuroanatomy.
BigBrain 3D atlas of cortical layers: Cortical and laminar thickness gradients diverge in sensory and motor cortices
Konrad Wagstyl
Stéphanie Larocque
Guillem Cucurull
Claude Lepage
Joseph Paul Cohen
Sebastian Bludau
Nicola Palomero-Gallagher
L. Lewis
Thomas Funck
Hannah Spitzer
Timo Dicksheid
Paul C Fletcher
Karl Zilles
Katrin Amunts
Alan C. Evans
Histological atlases of the cerebral cortex, such as those made famous by Brodmann and von Economo, are invaluable for understanding human b… (voir plus)rain microstructure and its relationship with functional organization in the brain. However, these existing atlases are limited to small numbers of manually annotated samples from a single cerebral hemisphere, measured from 2D histological sections. We present the first whole-brain quantitative 3D laminar atlas of the human cerebral cortex. This atlas was derived from a 3D histological model of the human brain at 20 micron isotropic resolution (BigBrain), using a convolutional neural network to segment, automatically, the cortical layers in both hemispheres. Our approach overcomes many of the historical challenges with measurement of histological thickness in 2D and the resultant laminar atlas provides an unprecedented level of precision and detail. We utilized this BigBrain cortical atlas to test whether previously reported thickness gradients, as measured by MRI in sensory and motor processing cortices, were present in a histological atlas of cortical thickness, and which cortical layers were contributing to these gradients. Cortical thickness increased across sensory processing hierarchies, primarily driven by layers III, V and VI. In contrast, fronto-motor cortices showed the opposite pattern, with decreases in total and pyramidal layer thickness. These findings illustrate how this laminar atlas will provide a link between single-neuron morphology, mesoscale cortical layering, macroscopic cortical thickness and, ultimately, functional neuroanatomy.
Interpolation Consistency Training for Semi-Supervised Learning
Vikas Verma
Alex Lamb
Juho Kannala
David Lopez-Paz
LF-PPL: A Low-Level First Order Probabilistic Programming Language for Non-Differentiable Models
Yuanshuo Zhou
Bradley Gram-Hansen
Tobias Kohn
Tom Rainforth
Hongseok Yang
Frank Wood
We develop a new Low-level, First-order Probabilistic Programming Language~(LF-PPL) suited for models containing a mix of continuous, discre… (voir plus)te, and/or piecewise-continuous variables. The key success of this language and its compilation scheme is in its ability to automatically distinguish parameters the density function is discontinuous with respect to, while further providing runtime checks for boundary crossings. This enables the introduction of new inference engines that are able to exploit gradient information, while remaining efficient for models which are not everywhere differentiable. We demonstrate this ability by incorporating a discontinuous Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (DHMC) inference engine that is able to deliver automated and efficient inference for non-differentiable models. Our system is backed up by a mathematical formalism that ensures that any model expressed in this language has a density with measure zero discontinuities to maintain the validity of the inference engine.
Learning Dynamics Model in Reinforcement Learning by Incorporating the Long Term Future
Nan Rosemary Ke
Amanpreet Singh
Ahmed Touati
Anirudh Goyal
Devi Parikh
Dhruv Batra
In model-based reinforcement learning, the agent interleaves between model learning and planning. These two components are inextricably inte… (voir plus)rtwined. If the model is not able to provide sensible long-term prediction, the executed planner would exploit model flaws, which can yield catastrophic failures. This paper focuses on building a model that reasons about the long-term future and demonstrates how to use this for efficient planning and exploration. To this end, we build a latent-variable autoregressive model by leveraging recent ideas in variational inference. We argue that forcing latent variables to carry future information through an auxiliary task substantially improves long-term predictions. Moreover, by planning in the latent space, the planner's solution is ensured to be within regions where the model is valid. An exploration strategy can be devised by searching for unlikely trajectories under the model. Our method achieves higher reward faster compared to baselines on a variety of tasks and environments in both the imitation learning and model-based reinforcement learning settings.
Reinforcement Learning in Stationary Mean-field Games
Jayakumar Subramanian
Multi-agent reinforcement learning has made significant progress in recent years, but it remains a hard problem. Hence, one often resorts to… (voir plus) developing learning algorithms for specific classes of multi-agent systems. In this paper we study reinforcement learning in a specific class of multi-agent systems systems called mean-field games. In particular, we consider learning in stationary mean-field games. We identify two different solution concepts---stationary mean-field equilibrium and stationary mean-field social-welfare optimal policy---for such games based on whether the agents are non-cooperative or cooperative, respectively. We then generalize these solution concepts to their local variants using bounded rationality based arguments. For these two local solution concepts, we present two reinforcement learning algorithms. We show that the algorithms converge to the right solution under mild technical conditions and demonstrate this using two numerical examples.
Stochastic Bit-Wise Iterative Decoding of Polar Codes
Kaining Han
Junchao Wang
Jianhao Hu
Polar codes have received recent attention due to their potential to be applied in advanced wireless communication protocols such as the fif… (voir plus)th generation mobile communication system (5G). Among the existing decoding algorithms, Belief Propagation (BP) exhibits high-throughput, low-latency, and soft output with a high hardware cost. Stochastic computing, as a form of approximate computing, provides a potential low-cost implementation solution for the BP algorithm. However, existing stochastic BP decoders suffer from a relatively long decoding latency resulting in low hardware efficiency. In this paper, a novel bit-wise iterative stochastic decoding architecture for the BP algorithm is proposed to improve the throughput and hardware efficiency. By utilizing the frozen bits of polar codes and stochastic computing, multiple novel optimization methods are presented to further speed up convergence and increase the hardware efficiency.
Stochastic Bit-Wise Iterative Decoding of Polar Codes
Kaining Han
Junchao Wang
Jianhao Hu
Polar codes have received recent attention due to their potential to be applied in advanced wireless communication protocols such as the fif… (voir plus)th generation mobile communication system (5G). Among the existing decoding algorithms, Belief Propagation (BP) exhibits high-throughput, low-latency, and soft output with a high hardware cost. Stochastic computing, as a form of approximate computing, provides a potential low-cost implementation solution for the BP algorithm. However, existing stochastic BP decoders suffer from a relatively long decoding latency resulting in low hardware efficiency. In this paper, a novel bit-wise iterative stochastic decoding architecture for the BP algorithm is proposed to improve the throughput and hardware efficiency. By utilizing the frozen bits of polar codes and stochastic computing, multiple novel optimization methods are presented to further speed up convergence and increase the hardware efficiency.
Prediction of Progression in Multiple Sclerosis Patients
Adrian Tousignant
Paul Lemaitre
Douglas Arnold
We present the first automatic end-to-end deep learning framework for the prediction of future patient disability progression (one year from… (voir plus) baseline) based on multi-modal brain Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) of patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The model uses parallel convolutional pathways, an idea introduced by the popular Inception net and is trained and tested on two large proprietary, multi-scanner, multi-center, clinical trial datasets of patients with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS). Experiments on 465 patients on the placebo arms of the trials indicate that the model can accurately predict future disease progression, measured by a sustained increase in the extended disability status scale (EDSS) score over time. Using only the multi-modal MRI provided at baseline, the model achieves an AUC of 0.66 +- 0.055. However, when supplemental lesion label masks are provided as inputs as well, the AUC increases to 0.701 +- 0.027. Furthermore, we demonstrate that uncertainty estimates based on Monte Carlo dropout sample variance correlate with errors made by the model. Clinicians provided with the predictions computed by the model can therefore use the associated uncertainty estimates to assess which scans require further examination.
The Termination Critic
Anna Harutyunyan
Will Dabney
Diana L. Borsa
Nicolas Heess
Remi Munos
In this work, we consider the problem of autonomously discovering behavioral abstractions, or options, for reinforcement learning agents. We… (voir plus) propose an algorithm that focuses on the termination function, as opposed to - as is common - the policy. The termination function is usually trained to optimize a control objective: an option ought to terminate if another has better value. We offer a different, information-theoretic perspective, and propose that terminations should focus instead on the compressibility of the option’s encoding - arguably a key reason for using abstractions.To achieve this algorithmically, we leverage the classical options framework, and learn the option transition model as a “critic” for the termination function. Using this model, we derive gradients that optimize the desired criteria. We show that the resulting options are non-trivial, intuitively meaningful, and useful for learning.
Predicting conversion to psychosis in clinical high risk patients using resting-state functional MRI features
Jolie Mcdonnell
W. Hord
Jenna Reinen
Pablo Polosecki
Guillermo Cecchi
Recent progress in artificial intelligence provides researchers with a powerful set of machine learning tools for analyzing brain imaging da… (voir plus)ta. In this work, we explore a variety of classification algorithms and functional network features derived from resting-state fMRI data collected from clinical high-risk (prodromal schizophrenia) patients and controls, trying to identify features predictive of conversion to psychosis among a subset of CHR patients. While there are many existing studies suggesting that functional network features can be highly discriminative of schizophrenia when analyzing fMRI of patients suffering from the disease vs controls, few studies attempt to explore a similar approach to actual prediction of future psychosis development ahead of time, in the prodromal stage. Our preliminary results demonstrate the potential of fMRI functional network features to predict the conversion to psychosis in CHR patients. However, given the high variance of our results across different classifiers and subsets of data, a more extensive empirical investigation is required to reach more robust conclusions.
Anytime Tail Averaging
Tail averaging consists in averaging the last examples in a stream. Common techniques either have a memory requirement which grows with the … (voir plus)number of samples to average, are not available at every timestep or do not accomodate growing windows. We propose two techniques with a low constant memory cost that perform tail averaging with access to the average at every time step. We also show how one can improve the accuracy of that average at the cost of increased memory consumption.