Large-scale parameters framework with large convolutional kernel for encoding visual fMRI activity information.

Journal: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
PMID:

Abstract

Visual encoding models often use deep neural networks to describe the brain's visual cortex response to external stimuli. Inspired by biological findings, researchers found that large receptive fields built with large convolutional kernels improve convolutional encoding model performance. Inspired by scaling laws in recent years, this article investigates the performance of large convolutional kernel encoding models on larger parameter scales. This paper proposes a large-scale parameters framework with a sizeable convolutional kernel for encoding visual functional magnetic resonance imaging activity information. The proposed framework consists of three parts: First, the stimulus image feature extraction module is constructed using a large-kernel convolutional network while increasing channel numbers to expand the parameter size of the framework. Second, enlarging the input data during the training stage through the multi-subject fusion module to accommodate the increase in parameters. Third, the voxel mapping module maps from stimulus image features to functional magnetic resonance imaging signals. Compared to sizeable convolutional kernel visual encoding networks with base parameter scale, our visual encoding framework improves by approximately 7% on the Natural Scenes Dataset, the dedicated dataset for the Algonauts 2023 Challenge. We further analyze that our encoding framework made a trade-off between encoding performance and trainability. This paper confirms that expanding parameters in visual coding can bring performance improvements.

Authors

  • Shuxiao Ma
    Henan Key Laboratory of Imaging and Intelligent Processing, PLA Strategic Support Force Information Engineering University, Zhengzhou, 450000, China.
  • Linyuan Wang
    National Digital Switching System Engineering and Technological Research Centre, Zhengzhou, China.
  • Senbao Hou
    Henan Key Laboratory of Imaging and Intelligent Processing, PLA Strategic Support Force Information Engineering University, Zhengzhou, 450000, China.
  • Chi Zhang
    Department of Thoracic Surgery, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
  • Bin Yan
    National Digital Switching System Engineering and Technological Research Centre, Zhengzhou, China.