Brainnetome-wide association studies in schizophrenia: the advances and future

Convergent evidence suggests that psychiatric disorders are the result of faulty brain networks. To understand the pathophysiological network mechanisms of psychiatric disorders, it is necessary to integrate multi-level network features obtained using various functional and anatomical brain imaging technologies on different scales. We have proposed a new concept, the brainnetome, to represent this integrative framework. In the present review, we use schizophrenia, a disorder characterized by dysconnectivity, to demonstrate how the brainnetome concept can be applied to the study of psychiatric disorders. We first review studies of abnormal brain networks in schizophrenia that are based on single regions of interest. We then present some advances and challenges in understanding the malfunctions of specific brain networks in schizophrenia. Some recent advances and challenges in understanding abnormal whole brain networks in schizophrenia are also presented. We next briefly introduce a few studies that show how genes related to the risk for schizophrenia affect brain networks. Finally, we present a brief discussion about how the brainnetome concept may influence future research and provide a perspective on challenges in this field.