Unsupervised Dynamic Time Warping Clustering for Robust Functional Network Identification in fNIRS Motor Tasks

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a valuable non-invasive modality for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), but robust signal interpretation is challenged by the significant temporal variability of the hemodynamic response. Standard linear methods, such as Pearson correlation, often fail to capture functional connectivity when signals exhibit temporal jitter. This study validates an unsupervised Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) clustering framework to robustly identify motor networks from fNIRS data by accommodating non-linear temporal shifts. We analyzed a public fNIRS dataset (N = 30) across right-hand (RHT), left-hand (LHT), and foot tapping (FT) tasks. A robust preprocessing pipeline was implemented, including Wavelet Motion Correction and Common Average Referencing (CAR) to remove artifacts and global systemic noise. The core method involved computing Z-score normalized DTW distance matrices, followed by hierarchical clustering. To validate the framework, we benchmarked it against a standard Pearson Correlation method. Results show that the unsupervised DTW framework achieved a network identification accuracy of 53.17%, significantly outperforming the standard Pearson correlation benchmark (48.06%) with a statistically significant difference (<i>p</i> < 0.05). The framework successfully detected distinct, somatotopically correct modulations: superior-medial activation during foot tapping and lateralized activation during hand tapping. These findings demonstrate that unsupervised DTW clustering is a robust, data-driven approach that outperforms conventional linear methods in capturing functional networks during motor tasks, showing significant potential for next-generation asynchronous BCIs.