Network Diffusion Models for Functional Brain Connectivity Networks

Farras Abdelnour¹, Henning Voss¹, Ashish Raj¹

We present a simple and intuitive network diffusion model which produces an accurate mathematical description of the structure-function relationship. We hypothesize that resting state functional relationships between brain regions result from this diffusion process applied to the structural network during rest. The network diffusion model applied to the structural networks closely predicts both the spatial and temporal correlation structures seen in the functional networks. We compare our work with published models. The proposed model is simple yet offers improved estimates of functional connectivity.