Heritability and Cognitive Relevance of Structural Brain Controllability
Won Hee Lee1, Amanda Rodrigue2, David C Glahn2
1Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA.
Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
|December 16, 2019
Summary
Brain region controllability, a measure of influence, explains individual differences in cognition. This network control theory approach reveals how brain structure impacts cognitive function, offering a mechanistic link.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Network Science
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Cognition and behavior arise from complex brain region interactions.
- The exact mechanisms linking brain structure to cognitive variation are not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how the structural connectivity of brain regions influences individual differences in cognition using network control theory.
- To explore the concept of brain regional controllability as a predictor of cognitive performance.
Main Methods:
- Applied network control theory to analyze structural connectivity in a cohort of 1066 healthy young adults.
- Computed average and modal controllability for brain regions to quantify their influence over other regions.
- Assessed the reproducibility and heritability of these controllability measures.
Main Results:
- Brain regional controllability measures were found to be reproducible and heritable.
- Regions with high controllability were enriched in higher-order resting-state networks, suggesting roles in complex cognitive operations.
- Individual variation in regional controllability explained approximately 50% of the interindividual variability in cognitive domains.
Conclusions:
- Controllability is a valid, biologically plausible property of the brain's structural connectome.
- This framework provides a mechanistic explanation for how brain architecture influences cognitive functions and individual differences.
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