Longitudinal Flow Matching for Trajectory Modeling
Mohammad Mohaiminul Islam, Thijs P. Kuipers, Sharvaree Vadgama, Coen de Vente, Afsana Khan, Clara I. Sánchez, Erik J. Bekkers
Published: 2025/10/3
Abstract
Generative models for sequential data often struggle with sparsely sampled and high-dimensional trajectories, typically reducing the learning of dynamics to pairwise transitions. We propose \textit{Interpolative Multi-Marginal Flow Matching} (IMMFM), a framework that learns continuous stochastic dynamics jointly consistent with multiple observed time points. IMMFM employs a piecewise-quadratic interpolation path as a smooth target for flow matching and jointly optimizes drift and a data-driven diffusion coefficient, supported by a theoretical condition for stable learning. This design captures intrinsic stochasticity, handles irregular sparse sampling, and yields subject-specific trajectories. Experiments on synthetic benchmarks and real-world longitudinal neuroimaging datasets show that IMMFM outperforms existing methods in both forecasting accuracy and further downstream tasks.