CCA for joint blind source separation of multiple datasets with application to group FMRI analysis

In this work, we propose a scheme for joint blind source separation (BSS) of multiple datasets using canonical correlation analysis (CCA). The proposed scheme jointly extracts sources from each dataset in the order of between-set source correlations. We show that, when sources are uncorrelated within each dataset and correlated across different datasets only on corresponding indices, (i) CCA on two datasets achieves BSS when the sources from the two datasets have distinct between-set correlation coefficients, and (ii) CCA on multiple datasets (M-CCA) achieves BSS with a more relaxed condition on the between-set source correlation coefficients compared to CCA on two datasets. We present simulation results to demonstrate the properties of CCA and M-CCA on joint BSS. We apply M-CCA to group functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired from several subjects performing a visuomotor task and obtain interesting brain activations as well as their correlation profiles across different subjects in the group.