Resting-State Functional Connectivity Does Not Predict Individual Differences in Perceived Psychological Stress Among...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Perceived psychological stress is theorized to have neural representations.
• A reliable neural signature for predicting perceived stress remains uncharacterized.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity (FC) patterns can predict individual differences in perceived stress.

Main Methods:

• 417 midlife adults underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
• Whole-brain functional connectivity was computed for 19,900 connections.
• Multivariate machine learning models (elastic net, ridge regression) were used to predict perceived stress from FC patterns.

Main Results:

• Whole-brain resting-state FC patterns did not reliably predict individual differences in perceived stress.
• Exploratory analyses successfully predicted age using resting-state FC patterns in both models.

Conclusions:

• Resting-state FC patterns may not be a reliable predictor of self-reported perceived stress in midlife adults.
• Further research is needed to understand the neural basis of perceived stress.