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Main Authors: Izadi, Mohammad, Safayani, Mehran
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14005
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author Izadi, Mohammad
Safayani, Mehran
author_facet Izadi, Mohammad
Safayani, Mehran
contents Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition marked by disruptions in brain connectivity. Functional MRI (fMRI) offers a non-invasive window into large-scale neural dynamics by measuring blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals across the brain. These signals can be modeled as interactions among Regions of Interest (ROIs), which are grouped into functional communities based on their underlying roles in brain function. Emerging evidence suggests that connectivity patterns within and between these communities are particularly sensitive to ASD-related alterations. Effectively capturing these patterns and identifying interactions that deviate from typical development is essential for improving ASD diagnosis and enabling biomarker discovery. In this work, we introduce ASDFormer, a Transformer-based architecture that incorporates a Mixture of Pooling-Classifier Experts (MoE) to capture neural signatures associated with ASD. By integrating multiple specialized expert branches with attention mechanisms, ASDFormer adaptively emphasizes different brain regions and connectivity patterns relevant to autism. This enables both improved classification performance and more interpretable identification of disorder-related biomarkers. Applied to the ABIDE dataset, ASDFormer achieves state-of-the-art diagnostic accuracy and reveals robust insights into functional connectivity disruptions linked to ASD, highlighting its potential as a tool for biomarker discovery.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_14005
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ASDFormer: A Transformer with Mixtures of Pooling-Classifier Experts for Robust Autism Diagnosis and Biomarker Discovery
Izadi, Mohammad
Safayani, Mehran
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition marked by disruptions in brain connectivity. Functional MRI (fMRI) offers a non-invasive window into large-scale neural dynamics by measuring blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals across the brain. These signals can be modeled as interactions among Regions of Interest (ROIs), which are grouped into functional communities based on their underlying roles in brain function. Emerging evidence suggests that connectivity patterns within and between these communities are particularly sensitive to ASD-related alterations. Effectively capturing these patterns and identifying interactions that deviate from typical development is essential for improving ASD diagnosis and enabling biomarker discovery. In this work, we introduce ASDFormer, a Transformer-based architecture that incorporates a Mixture of Pooling-Classifier Experts (MoE) to capture neural signatures associated with ASD. By integrating multiple specialized expert branches with attention mechanisms, ASDFormer adaptively emphasizes different brain regions and connectivity patterns relevant to autism. This enables both improved classification performance and more interpretable identification of disorder-related biomarkers. Applied to the ABIDE dataset, ASDFormer achieves state-of-the-art diagnostic accuracy and reveals robust insights into functional connectivity disruptions linked to ASD, highlighting its potential as a tool for biomarker discovery.
title ASDFormer: A Transformer with Mixtures of Pooling-Classifier Experts for Robust Autism Diagnosis and Biomarker Discovery
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14005