scholarly journals State-Unspecific Modes of Whole-Brain Functional Connectivity Predict Intelligence and Life Outcomes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Takagi ◽  
Jun-ichiro Hirayama ◽  
Saori C Tanaka

AbstractRecent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have increasingly revealed potential neural substrates of individual differences in diverse types of brain function and dysfunction. Although most previous studies have been inherently limited to state-specific characterizations of related brain networks and their functions, several recent studies have examined the potential state-unspecific nature of functional brain networks, such as their global similarities across different experimental conditions (i.e., states) including both task and rest. However, no previous studies have carried out direct, systematic characterizations of state-unspecific brain networks, or their functional implications. Here, we quantitatively identified several modes of state-unspecific individual variation in whole-brain functional connectivity patterns, called “Common Neural Modes (CNMs)”, from a large fMRI dataset including eight task/rest states, obtained from the Human Connectome Project. Furthermore, we tested how CNMs account for variability in individual behavioral measures. The results revealed that three CNMs were robustly extracted under various different preprocessing conditions. Each of these CNMs was significantly correlated with different aspects of behavioral measures of both fluid and crystalized intelligence. The three CNMs were also able to predict several life outcomes, such as income and life satisfaction, achieving the highest performance when combined with behavioral intelligence measures as inputs. Our findings highlight the importance of state-unspecific brain networks to characterize fundamental individual variation.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aya Kabbara ◽  
Veronique Paban ◽  
Arnaud Weill ◽  
Julien Modolo ◽  
Mahmoud Hassan

AbstractIntroductionIdentifying the neural substrates underlying the personality traits is a topic of great interest. On the other hand, it is now established that the brain is a dynamic networked system which can be studied using functional connectivity techniques. However, much of the current understanding of personality-related differences in functional connectivity has been obtained through the stationary analysis, which does not capture the complex dynamical properties of brain networks.ObjectiveIn this study, we aimed to evaluate the feasibility of using dynamic network measures to predict personality traits.MethodUsing the EEG/MEG source connectivity method combined with a sliding window approach, dynamic functional brain networks were reconstructed from two datasets: 1) Resting state EEG data acquired from 56 subjects. 2) Resting state MEG data provided from the Human Connectome Project. Then, several dynamic functional connectivity metrics were evaluated.ResultsSimilar observations were obtained by the two modalities (EEG and MEG) according to the neuroticism, which showed a negative correlation with the dynamic variability of resting state brain networks. In particular, a significant relationship between this personality trait and the dynamic variability of the temporal lobe regions was observed. Results also revealed that extraversion and openness are positively correlated with the dynamics of the brain networks.ConclusionThese findings highlight the importance of tracking the dynamics of functional brain networks to improve our understanding about the neural substrates of personality.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S Barron ◽  
Siyuan Gao ◽  
Javid Dadashkarimi ◽  
Abigail S Greene ◽  
Marisa N Spann ◽  
...  

Abstract Memory deficits are observed in a range of psychiatric disorders, but it is unclear whether memory deficits arise from a shared brain correlate across disorders or from various dysfunctions unique to each disorder. Connectome-based predictive modeling is a computational method that captures individual differences in functional connectomes associated with behavioral phenotypes such as memory. We used publicly available task-based functional MRI data from patients with schizophrenia (n = 33), bipolar disorder (n = 34), attention deficit hyper-activity disorder (n = 32), and healthy controls (n = 73) to model the macroscale brain networks associated with working, short- and long-term memory. First, we use 10-fold and leave-group-out analyses to demonstrate that the same macroscale brain networks subserve memory across diagnostic groups and that individual differences in memory performance are related to individual differences within networks distributed throughout the brain, including the subcortex, default mode network, limbic network, and cerebellum. Next, we show that diagnostic groups are associated with significant differences in whole-brain functional connectivity that are distinct from the predictive models of memory. Finally, we show that models trained on the transdiagnostic sample generalize to novel, healthy participants (n = 515) from the Human Connectome Project. These results suggest that despite significant differences in whole-brain patterns of functional connectivity between diagnostic groups, the core macroscale brain networks that subserve memory are shared.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Zhao ◽  
Brian S. Caffo ◽  
Bingkai Wang ◽  
Chiang-shan R. Li ◽  
Xi Luo

AbstractResting-state functional connectivity is an important and widely used measure of individual and group differences. These differences are typically attributed to various demographic and/or clinical factors. Yet, extant statistical methods are limited to linking covariates with variations in functional connectivity across subjects, especially at the voxel-wise level of the whole brain. This paper introduces a generalized linear model method that regresses whole-brain functional connectivity on covariates. Our approach builds on two methodological components. We first employ whole-brain group ICA to reduce the dimensionality of functional connectivity matrices, and then search for matrix variations associated with covariates using covariate assisted principal regression, a recently introduced covariance matrix regression method. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach using a resting-state fMRI dataset of a medium-sized cohort of subjects obtained from the Human Connectome Project. The results show that the approach enjoys improved statistical power in detecting interaction effects of sex and alcohol on whole-brain functional connectivity, and in identifying the brain areas contributing significantly to the covariate-related differences in functional connectivity.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Shappell ◽  
Brian S. Caffo ◽  
James J. Pekar ◽  
Martin A. Lindquist

AbstractThe study of functional brain networks has grown rapidly over the past decade. While most functional connectivity (FC) analyses estimate one static network structure for the entire length of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) time series, recently there has been increased interest in studying time-varying changes in FC. Hidden Markov models (HMMs) have proven to be a useful modeling approach for discovering repeating graphs of interacting brain regions (brain states). However, a limitation lies in HMMs assuming that the sojourn time, the number of consecutive time points in a state, is geometrically distributed. This may encourage inaccurate estimation of the time spent in a state before switching to another state. We propose a hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM) approach for inferring time-varying brain networks from fMRI data, which explicitly models the sojourn distribution. Specifically, we propose using HSMMs to find each subject’s most probable series of network states and the graphs associated with each state, while properly estimating and modeling the sojourn distribution for each state. We perform a simulation study, as well as an analysis on both task-based fMRI data from an anxiety-inducing experiment and resting-state fMRI data from the Human Connectome Project. Our results demonstrate the importance of model choice when estimating sojourn times and reveal their potential for understanding healthy and diseased brain mechanisms.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 4208-4222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuehua Xu ◽  
Miao Cao ◽  
Xuhong Liao ◽  
Mingrui Xia ◽  
Xindi Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Individual variability in human brain networks underlies individual differences in cognition and behaviors. However, researchers have not conclusively determined when individual variability patterns of the brain networks emerge and how they develop in the early phase. Here, we employed resting-state functional MRI data and whole-brain functional connectivity analyses in 40 neonates aged around 31–42 postmenstrual weeks to characterize the spatial distribution and development modes of individual variability in the functional network architecture. We observed lower individual variability in primary sensorimotor and visual areas and higher variability in association regions at the third trimester, and these patterns are generally similar to those of adult brains. Different functional systems showed dramatic differences in the development of individual variability, with significant decreases in the sensorimotor network; decreasing trends in the visual, subcortical, and dorsal and ventral attention networks, and limited change in the default mode, frontoparietal and limbic networks. The patterns of individual variability were negatively correlated with the short- to middle-range connection strength/number and this distance constraint was significantly strengthened throughout development. Our findings highlight the development and emergence of individual variability in the functional architecture of the prenatal brain, which may lay network foundations for individual behavioral differences later in life.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinliang Zhang ◽  
Gaoyan Zhang ◽  
Xianglin Li ◽  
Peiyuan Wang ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
...  

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