Multi-scale asynchronous correlation and 2D convolutional autoencoder for adolescent health risk prediction with limited fMRI data.

Introduction: Adolescence is a fundamental period of transformation, encompassing extensive physical, psychological, and behavioral changes. Effective health risk assessment during this stage is crucial for timely intervention, yet traditional methodologies often fail to accurately predict mental and behavioral health risks due to the intricacy of neural dynamics and the scarcity of quality-annotated fMRI datasets.

Methods: This study introduces an innovative deep learning-based framework for health risk assessment in adolescents by employing a combination of a two-dimensional convolutional autoencoder (2DCNN-AE) with multi-sequence learning and multi-scale asynchronous correlation information extraction techniques. This approach facilitates the intricate analysis of spatial and temporal features within fMRI data, aiming to enhance the accuracy of the risk assessment process.

Results: Upon examination using the Adolescent Risk Behavior (AHRB) dataset, which includes fMRI scans from 174 individuals aged 17-22, the proposed methodology exhibited a significant improvement over conventional models. It attained a precision of 83.116%, a recall of 84.784%, and an F1-score of 83.942%, surpassing standard benchmarks in most pertinent evaluative measures.

Discussion: The results underscore the superior performance of the deep learning-based approach in understanding and predicting health-related risks in adolescents. It underscores the value of this methodology in advancing the precision of health risk assessments, offering an enhanced tool for early detection and potential intervention strategies in this sensitive developmental stage.