Developing a knowledge-guided federated graph attention learning network with a diffusion module to diagnose Alzheimer's disease

In studies of Alzheimer's disease (AD), limited sample size considerably hampers the performance of intelligent diagnostic systems. Using multi-site data increases sample size but raises concerns regarding data privacy and inter-site heterogeneity. To address these issues, we developed a knowledge-guided federated graph attention learning network with a diffusion module to facilitate AD diagnosis from multi-site data. We used multiple templates to extract regions-of-interest (ROI)-based volume features from structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) data. These volume features were then combined with previously identified AD features from published studies (prior knowledge) to determine the discriminative features within the images. We then designed an attention-guided diffusion module to synthesize samples by prioritizing these key features. The diffusion module was trained within a federated learning framework, which ensured inter-site data privacy while limiting data heterogeneity. Finally, we designed a federated graph attention learning network as a classifier to capture AD-related deep features and improve the accuracy of diagnosing AD. The efficacy of our approach was validated using three AD datasets. Thus, the classifier developed in this study represents a promising tool for optimizing multi-site neuroimaging data to improving the accuracy of diagnosing AD in the clinic.