BDHS Seminar Presented by Yize Zhao
Department of Biostatistics
Yale University

Neurodegenerative and complex chronic diseases emerge from interactions that span biological networks and populations. I will introduce two Bayesian frameworks that quantify these interactions, from within-brain propagation to across-disease comorbidity. In the first project, aimed at characterizing Tau protein spread along functional networks in the early course of Alzheimer’s disease generated from the A4 study, we jointly model tau propagation, functional connectivity structure, and subgroup heterogeneity using cross-sectional data. By integrating graph-constrained infection dynamics with connectivity patterns, the model infers plausible propagation pathways and subgroup-specific infection sequences. In the second project, using UK Biobank EHRs, we represent disease relationships through a latent hypergraph, where each hyperedge captures the higher-order clusters of diseases that share covariate-dependent risk. By uncovering disease hyperedges and their associated risk factors, we characterize how biological and lifestyle factors jointly influence sets of related conditions. To scale posterior inference while preserving uncertainty, we employ amortized variational inference with neural parameterization. Together, these studies yield probabilistic, graph-informed and interpretable views of disease pathology and organization.

A seminar tea will be held at 2:45 p.m. in University Office Plaza, Room 240. All are Welcome.