Committee: 

Dr. Calhoun, Advisor    

Dr. Anderson, Chair

Dr. Dovrolis

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to develop a framework to unify the different methodologies that are used for constructing a specific part of the brain functional networks (i.e., functional connectivity or the relationship between different parts of the functional networks). In addition, we will develop new methodologies for estimating functional connectivity and propose modifications for other methods already available in the field to improve them. Finally, we implement the proposed methods on real brain functional data to showcase these methods' applications for extracting biomarkers for both healthy (i.e., development of the human brain from early childhood to adolescence) and abnormal conditions of the human brain (e.g., Schizophrenia).