  Datasets in the real world are often complex and to some degree hierarchical,
with groups and sub-groups of data sharing common characteristics at different
levels of abstraction. Understanding and uncovering the hidden structure of
these datasets is an important task that has many practical applications. To
address this challenge, we present a new and general method for building
relational data trees by exploiting the learning dynamics of the Restricted
Boltzmann Machine (RBM). Our method is based on the mean-field approach,
derived from the Plefka expansion, and developed in the context of disordered
systems. It is designed to be easily interpretable. We tested our method in an
artificially created hierarchical dataset and on three different real-world
datasets (images of digits, mutations in the human genome, and a homologous
family of proteins). The method is able to automatically identify the
hierarchical structure of the data. This could be useful in the study of
homologous protein sequences, where the relationships between proteins are
critical for understanding their function and evolution.
