Meta-learning In-Context Enables Training-Free Cross Subject Brain Decoding

Visual decoding from brain signals is a key challenge at the intersection of computer vision and neuroscience, requiring methods that bridge neural representations and computational models of vision. A field-wide goal is to achieve generalizable, cross-subject models. A major obstacle towards this goal is the substantial variability in neural representations across individuals, which has so far required training bespoke models or fine-tuning separately for each subject. To address this challenge, we introduce a meta-optimized approach for semantic visual decoding from fMRI that generalizes to novel subjects without any fine-tuning. By simply conditioning on a small set of image-brain activation examples from the new individual, our model rapidly infers their unique neural encoding patterns to facilitate robust and efficient visual decoding. Our approach is explicitly optimized for in-context learning of the new subject's encoding model and performs decoding by hierarchical inference, inverting the encoder. First, for multiple brain regions, we estimate the per-voxel visual response encoder parameters by constructing a context over multiple stimuli and responses. Second, we construct a context consisting of encoder parameters and response values over multiple voxels to perform aggregated functional inversion. We demonstrate strong cross-subject and cross-scanner generalization across diverse visual backbones without retraining or fine-tuning. Moreover, our approach requires neither anatomical alignment nor stimulus overlap. This work is a critical step towards a generalizable foundation model for non-invasive brain decoding.

Automated Estimation of Anatomical Risk Metrics for Endoscopic Sinus Surgery Using Deep Learning

Endoscopic sinus surgery requires careful preoperative assessment of the skull base anatomy to minimize risks such as cerebrospinal fluid leakage. Anatomical risk scores like the Keros, Gera and Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore score offer a standardized approach but require time-consuming manual measurements on coronal CT or CBCT scans. We propose an automated deep learning pipeline that estimates these risk scores by localizing key anatomical landmarks via heatmap regression. We compare a direct approach to a specialized global-to-local learning strategy and find mean absolute errors on the relevant anatomical measurements of 0.506mm for the Keros, 4.516° for the Gera and 0.802mm / 0.777mm for the TMS classification.

UAV Swarms for Joint Data Ferrying and Dynamic Cell Coverage via Optimal Transport Descent and Quadratic Assignment

Both data ferrying with disruption-tolerant networking (DTN) and mobile cellular base stations constitute important techniques for UAV-aided communication in situations of crises where standard communication infrastructure is unavailable. For optimal use of a limited number of UAVs, we propose providing both DTN and a cellular base station on each UAV. Here, DTN is used for large amounts of low-priority data, while capacity-constrained cell coverage remains reserved for emergency calls or command and control. We optimize cell coverage via a novel optimal transport-based formulation using alternating minimization, while for data ferrying we periodically deliver data between dynamic clusters by solving quadratic assignment problems. In our evaluation, we consider different scenarios with varying mobility models and a wide range of flight patterns. Overall, we tractably achieve optimal cell coverage under quality-of-service costs with DTN-based data ferrying, enabling large-scale deployment of UAV swarms for crisis communication.