Dynamic Bayesian networks for neural information flow: evaluation of continuous and discrete scoring metrics

Neural information flow describes the movement of activity between neurons or brain areas. Advances in experimental methods have allowed production of large amounts of observational data related to neuronal activity from the single-neuron to population level. Most current methods for analysing these data are based on pairwise comparison of activity, and fall short of reliably extracting neural information flow network structure. Dynamic Bayesian networks may overcome some of these limitations. Here we evaluate the performance of a range of Bayesian network scoring metrics against the performance of multivariate Granger causality and LASSO regression for their ability to learn the connectivity underlying simulated single-neuron and neuronal population data. We find that discrete dynamic Bayesian networks are the best performing method for single-neuron data, and perform consistently for neural-population data. Continuous dynamic Bayesian networks have a tendency to learn overly dense structures for both data types, but may have utility in scoping studies on single-neuron data. Multivariate Granger causality is the most robust method for learning structure of neural information flow between neural-populations, but performs poorly on single-neuron data. Significance testing within multivariate Granger causality produces variable results between data types. Overall, this work highlights how the analysis of neural information flow can vary depending on the type and structure of underlying data, and promotes discrete dynamic Bayesian networks as a useful and consistent tool for neural information flow analysis.