Linking Individual Differences in Personalized Functional Network Topography to Psychopathology in Youth

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Individual variations in large-scale functional brain network spatial layout, especially in the association cortex, are linked to psychiatric disorders.
• The relationship between functional topography variation and major psychopathology dimensions in youth remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if individual differences in functional brain network topography predict major dimensions of psychopathology in youth.
• To explore the predictive power of personalized functional networks for overall and specific psychopathology dimensions.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 790 youths (ages 8-23) were analyzed.
• Individual-specific functional networks were identified using spatially regularized nonnegative matrix factorization.
• Partial least square regression assessed the extent to which functional network topography encodes psychopathology dimensions.

Main Results:

• Personalized functional network topography significantly predicted fear, psychosis, externalizing, and anxious-misery dimensions in unseen individuals.
• Reduced association network representation was a key predictor across all four psychopathology dimensions.
• Functional network topography predicted overall psychopathology (r=0.16, p<.001), which in turn drove the prediction of specific dimensions.

Conclusions:

• Individual differences in functional network topography within association networks correlate with overall psychopathology in youth.
• Findings emphasize the significance of functional neuroanatomy for personalized psychiatric diagnostics and treatments.