A Novel GNN Framework Integrating Neuroimaging and Behavioral Information to Understand Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders

Abstract

Functional connectivity (FC) is widely used to study various psychiatric disorders, but its consistency is often undermined by significant inter-subject variability. While these differences can be reflected in behavioral characteristics, few studies have combined them with FC. To this end, we propose a novel graph learning framework that enhances the differentiation of psychiatric disorders by integrating FC and behavioral characteristics. Additionally, we apply Grad-CAM to enhance model interpretability by identifying key regions of interest involved in distinguishing individuals with psychiatric disorders from healthy controls. Experiments with the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset highlighted two critical insights: the thalamus and specific ROIs within the somatomotor and cingulo-opercular networks play a critical role for identifying psychiatric disorders. Additionally, visualization of latent representations demonstrated that individuals with externalizing disorders, specifically Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, can be distinguished from healthy controls. These findings underscore the utility of our graph learning framework for identifying psychiatric disorders and suggest its promise for improving diagnostic accuracy.