Directional Absolute Coherence: a phase-based measure of effective connectivity for neurophysiology data

Abstract

Communication between neural structures is a topic of much clinical and scientific interest and has been linked to a variety of behavioural, cognitive, and psychiatric measures. Here, we introduce a novel effective connectivity measure, termed the directional absolute coherence (DAC). Combining aspects of magnitude squared coherence, imaginary coherence, and phase slope index, DAC provides an estimate of connectivity that is resistant to volume conduction, encapsulates the directionality of neural communication, and is bound to the interval of -1 and 1. To highlight the properties of this newly proposed method, we compare DAC to a number of established connectivity methods using data recorded from the subthalamic nucleus of patients with Parkinsons disease with deep brain stimulation electrodes. By applying a combination of real and simulated data, we demonstrate that DAC provides a reliable estimate of the magnitude and direction of connectivity, independent of the phase difference between brain signals. As such, DAC facilitates a reliable investigation of inter-regional neural communication, rendering it a valuable tool for gaining a deeper understanding of the functional architecture of the brain and its relationship to behaviour and cognition. A Python implementation of DAC is freely available at https://github.com/neurophysiological-analysis/FiNN. Highlights- Volume conduction and limited interpretability affect many connectivity methods. - DAC is a combined approach to overcome these pitfalls. - DAC augments information content and interpretability in comparison to other methods. - DAC allows for reliable estimation of effective connectivity.