A novel approach for fMRI data analysis based on the combination of sparse approximation and affinity propagation clustering

Clustering analysis has been widely used to detect the functional connectivity from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. However, it has some limitations such as enormous computer memory requirement, and difficulty in estimating the number of clusters. In this study, in order to effectually resolve the deficiencies mentioned above, we have proposed a novel approach (SAAPC) for fMRI data analysis, which combines sparsity, an effective assumption for analyzing fMRI signal, with affinity propagation clustering (APC).