Matrix-valued data, where the sampling unit is a matrix consisting of rows and columns of measurements, are emerging in numerous scientific and business applications. Matrix Gaussian graphical model is a useful tool to characterize the conditional dependence structure of rows and columns. In this article, we employ nonconvex penalization to tackle the estimation of multiple graphs from matrix-valued data under a matrix normal distribution. We propose a highly efficient nonconvex optimization algorithm that can scale up for graphs with hundreds of nodes. We establish the asymptotic properties of the estimator, which requires less stringent conditions and has a sharper probability error bound than existing results. We demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed method through both simulations and real functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses.
Keywords: Conditional independence; Gaussian graphical model; Matrix normal distribution; Nonconvex penalization; Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging; Sparsistency.