MELLODDY: Cross-pharma Federated Learning at Unprecedented Scale Unlocks Benefits in QSAR without Compromising Proprietary Information.

Federated multipartner machine learning has been touted as an appealing and efficient method to increase the effective training data volume and thereby the predictivity of models, particularly when the generation of training data is resource-intensive. In the landmark MELLODDY project, indeed, each of ten pharmaceutical companies realized aggregated improvements on its own classification or regression models through federated learning. To this end, they leveraged a novel implementation extending multitask learning across partners, on a platform audited for privacy and security.

Coupling radiative, conductive and convective heat-transfers in a single Monte Carlo algorithm: A general theoretical framework for linear situations.

It was recently shown that radiation, conduction and convection can be combined within a single Monte Carlo algorithm and that such an algorithm immediately benefits from state-of-the-art computer-graphics advances when dealing with complex geometries. The theoretical foundations that make this coupling possible are fully exposed for the first time, supporting the intuitive pictures of continuous thermal paths that run through the different physics at work. First, the theoretical frameworks of propagators and Green's functions are used to demonstrate that a coupled model involving different physical phenomena can be probabilized.

Federated learning for predicting histological response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a rare cancer, characterized by high metastatic potential and poor prognosis, and has limited treatment options. The current standard of care in nonmetastatic settings is neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT), but treatment efficacy varies substantially across patients. This heterogeneity is still poorly understood, partly due to the paucity of curated TNBC data.

Optimising sounds for the driving of sleep oscillations by closed-loop auditory stimulation.

Recent studies have shown that slow oscillations (SOs) can be driven by rhythmic auditory stimulation, which deepens slow-wave sleep (SWS) and improves memory and the immune-supportive hormonal milieu related to this sleep stage. While different attempts have been made to optimise the driving of the SOs by changing the number of click stimulations, no study has yet investigated the impact of applying more than five clicks in a row. Likewise, the importance of the type of sounds in eliciting brain responses is presently unclear.

The future of digital health with federated learning.

Data-driven machine learning (ML) has emerged as a promising approach for building accurate and robust statistical models from medical data, which is collected in huge volumes by modern healthcare systems. Existing medical data is not fully exploited by ML primarily because it sits in data silos and privacy concerns restrict access to this data. However, without access to sufficient data, ML will be prevented from reaching its full potential and, ultimately, from making the transition from research to clinical practice.

Dendritic sodium spikes endow neurons with inverse firing rate response to correlated synaptic activity.

Many neurons possess dendrites enriched with sodium channels and are capable of generating action potentials. However, the role of dendritic sodium spikes remain unclear. Here, we study computational models of neurons to investigate the functional effects of dendritic spikes.

Addressing nonlinearities in Monte Carlo.

Monte Carlo is famous for accepting model extensions and model refinements up to infinite dimension. However, this powerful incremental design is based on a premise which has severely limited its application so far: a state-variable can only be recursively defined as a function of underlying state-variables if this function is linear. Here we show that this premise can be alleviated by projecting nonlinearities onto a polynomial basis and increasing the configuration space dimension.

A Deep Learning Architecture for Temporal Sleep Stage Classification Using Multivariate and Multimodal Time Series.

Sleep stage classification constitutes an important preliminary exam in the diagnosis of sleep disorders. It is traditionally performed by a sleep expert who assigns to each 30 s of the signal of a sleep stage, based on the visual inspection of signals such as electroencephalograms (EEGs), electrooculograms (EOGs), electrocardiograms, and electromyograms (EMGs). We introduce here the first deep learning approach for sleep stage classification that learns end-to-end without computing spectrograms or extracting handcrafted features, that exploits all multivariate and multimodal polysomnography (PSG) signals (EEG, EMG, and EOG), and that can exploit the temporal context of each 30-s window of data.

Performance of an Ambulatory Dry-EEG Device for Auditory Closed-Loop Stimulation of Sleep Slow Oscillations in the Home Environment.

Recent research has shown that auditory closed-loop stimulation can enhance sleep slow oscillations (SO) to improve N3 sleep quality and cognition. Previous studies have been conducted in lab environments. The present study aimed to validate and assess the performance of a novel ambulatory wireless dry-EEG device (WDD), for auditory closed-loop stimulation of SO during N3 sleep at home.

Slow feature analysis with spiking neurons and its application to audio stimuli.

Extracting invariant features in an unsupervised manner is crucial to perform complex computation such as object recognition, analyzing music or understanding speech. While various algorithms have been proposed to perform such a task, Slow Feature Analysis (SFA) uses time as a means of detecting those invariants, extracting the slowly time-varying components in the input signals. In this work, we address the question of how such an algorithm can be implemented by neurons, and apply it in the context of audio stimuli.

A local Echo State Property through the largest Lyapunov exponent.

Echo State Networks are efficient time-series predictors, which highly depend on the value of the spectral radius of the reservoir connectivity matrix. Based on recent results on the mean field theory of driven random recurrent neural networks, enabling the computation of the largest Lyapunov exponent of an ESN, we develop a cheap algorithm to establish a local and operational version of the Echo State Property.

Regular graphs maximize the variability of random neural networks.

In this work we study the dynamics of systems composed of numerous interacting elements interconnected through a random weighted directed graph, such as models of random neural networks. We develop an original theoretical approach based on a combination of a classical mean-field theory originally developed in the context of dynamical spin-glass models, and the heterogeneous mean-field theory developed to study epidemic propagation on graphs. Our main result is that, surprisingly, increasing the variance of the in-degree distribution does not result in a more variable dynamical behavior, but on the contrary that the most variable behaviors are obtained in the regular graph setting.

Ideomotor feedback control in a recurrent neural network.

The architecture of a neural network controlling an unknown environment is presented. It is based on a randomly connected recurrent neural network from which both perception and action are simultaneously read and fed back. There are two concurrent learning rules implementing a sort of ideomotor control: (i) perception is learned along the principle that the network should predict reliably its incoming stimuli; (ii) action is learned along the principle that the prediction of the network should match a target time series.

Relative entropy minimizing noisy non-linear neural network to approximate stochastic processes.

A method is provided for designing and training noise-driven recurrent neural networks as models of stochastic processes. The method unifies and generalizes two known separate modeling approaches, Echo State Networks (ESN) and Linear Inverse Modeling (LIM), under the common principle of relative entropy minimization. The power of the new method is demonstrated on a stochastic approximation of the El Niño phenomenon studied in climate research.

Macroscopic equations governing noisy spiking neuronal populations with linear synapses.

Deriving tractable reduced equations of biological neural networks capturing the macroscopic dynamics of sub-populations of neurons has been a longstanding problem in computational neuroscience. In this paper, we propose a reduction of large-scale multi-population stochastic networks based on the mean-field theory. We derive, for a wide class of spiking neuron models, a system of differential equations of the type of the usual Wilson-Cowan systems describing the macroscopic activity of populations, under the assumption that synaptic integration is linear with random coefficients.

A biological gradient descent for prediction through a combination of STDP and homeostatic plasticity.

Identifying, formalizing, and combining biological mechanisms that implement known brain functions, such as prediction, is a main aspect of research in theoretical neuroscience. In this letter, the mechanisms of spike-timing-dependent plasticity and homeostatic plasticity, combined in an original mathematical formalism, are shown to shape recurrent neural networks into predictors. Following a rigorous mathematical treatment, we prove that they implement the online gradient descent of a distance between the network activity and its stimuli.

Multiscale analysis of slow-fast neuronal learning models with noise.

This paper deals with the application of temporal averaging methods to recurrent networks of noisy neurons undergoing a slow and unsupervised modification of their connectivity matrix called learning. Three time-scales arise for these models: (i) the fast neuronal dynamics, (ii) the intermediate external input to the system, and (iii) the slow learning mechanisms. Based on this time-scale separation, we apply an extension of the mathematical theory of stochastic averaging with periodic forcing in order to derive a reduced deterministic model for the connectivity dynamics.

Hebbian learning of recurrent connections: a geometrical perspective.

We show how a Hopfield network with modifiable recurrent connections undergoing slow Hebbian learning can extract the underlying geometry of an input space. First, we use a slow and fast analysis to derive an averaged system whose dynamics derives from an energy function and therefore always converges to equilibrium points. The equilibria reflect the correlation structure of the inputs, a global object extracted through local recurrent interactions only.