Abstract: Two-sample multiple testing problems of sparse spatial data are frequently arising in a variety of scientific applications. In this article, we develop a novel neighborhood-assisted and posterior-adjusted (NAPA) approach to incorporate both the spatial smoothness and sparsity type side information to improve the power of the test while controlling the false discovery of multiple testing. We translate the side information into a set of weights to adjust the p-values, where the spatial pattern is encoded by the ordering of the locations, and the sparsity structure is encoded by a set of auxiliary covariates. We establish the theoretical properties of the proposed test, including the guaranteed power improvement over some state-of-the-art alternative tests, and the asymptotic false discovery control. We demonstrate the efficacy of the test through intensive simulations and two neuroimaging applications.

Key words and phrases: False discovery rate, multiple testing, side information, sparsity, spatial smoothness, weighted p-values.