Compute spatial autocorrelation of communication direction — communication_spatial

Compute Moran's I statistic for the vector field to assess spatial coherence of communication directions.

Usage

communication_spatial_autocorrelation(
  seurat_obj,
  database_name,
  key = "total",
  field = c("sender", "receiver"),
  spatial_coords = NULL,
  k = 5L,
  n_permutations = 999L,
  seed = NULL
)

Arguments

seurat_obj: Seurat object with vector field results.
database_name: Database name.
key: LR pair or pathway name.
field: "sender" or "receiver" vector field.
spatial_coords: Spatial coordinates.
k: Number of neighbors for spatial weights.
n_permutations: Number of permutations for p-value (default: 999).
seed: Random seed for reproducibility.

Value

List with Moran's I statistic, expected value, and p-value.

Details

Moran's I measures spatial autocorrelation. Positive values indicate that nearby cells have similar communication directions (spatially coherent signaling), while values near zero indicate random directions.