UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Granger causality revisited.

Friston, KJ; Bastos, AM; Oswal, A; van Wijk, B; Richter, C; Litvak, V; (2014) Granger causality revisited. Neuroimage , 101 pp. 796-808. 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.06.062. Green open access

[thumbnail of 1-s2.0-S1053811914005394-main.pdf]
Preview
PDF
1-s2.0-S1053811914005394-main.pdf

Download (2MB)

Abstract

This technical paper offers a critical re-evaluation of (spectral) Granger causality measures in the analysis of biological timeseries. Using realistic (neural mass) models of coupled neuronal dynamics, we evaluate the robustness of parametric and nonparametric Granger causality. Starting from a broad class of generative (state-space) models of neuronal dynamics, we show how their Volterra kernels prescribe the second-order statistics of their response to random fluctuations; characterized in terms of cross-spectral density, cross-covariance, autoregressive coefficients and directed transfer functions. These quantities in turn specify Granger causality - providing a direct (analytic) link between the parameters of a generative model and the expected Granger causality. We use this link to show that Granger causality measures based upon autoregressive models can become unreliable when the underlying dynamics is dominated by slow (unstable) modes - as quantified by the principal Lyapunov exponent. However, nonparametric measures based on causal spectral factors are robust to dynamical instability. We then demonstrate how both parametric and nonparametric spectral causality measures can become unreliable in the presence of measurement noise. Finally, we show that this problem can be finessed by deriving spectral causality measures from Volterra kernels, estimated using dynamic causal modelling.

Type: Article
Title: Granger causality revisited.
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.06.062
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.06.062
Additional information: © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Keywords: Granger causality, cross spectra, dynamic causal modelling, dynamics, effective connectivity, functional connectivity, neurophysiology
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1434621
Downloads since deposit
151Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item