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Patient Similarity Networks for Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Revisiting Brain Morphometry and Cognitive Features
Arvid Lundervold1,2, Julie Billing3, Birgitte Berentsen4,5
1Department of Biomedicine, University of Bergen, N-5009 Bergen, Norway.
Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland)
|January 28, 2026
Summary
Patient Similarity Networks reveal distinct brain-cognition profiles in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) that transcend diagnostic groups, aiding personalized treatment strategies.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Gastroenterology
- Computational Biology
Background:
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a complex disorder with intricate brain-gut interactions.
- Patient Similarity Networks (PSNs) offer a novel method to analyze IBS heterogeneity and identify patient subgroups.
- Understanding these subgroups is crucial for developing targeted therapies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore patient heterogeneity in Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) using Patient Similarity Networks (PSNs).
- To identify distinct neurobiological and cognitive profiles within IBS patient subgroups.
- To investigate the relationship between brain structure, cognitive function, and IBS symptom severity.
Main Methods:
- Analyzed brain morphometric and cognitive function data from 78 participants (49 IBS patients, 29 controls).
- Constructed PSNs using various similarity measures and applied community detection (Louvain algorithm).
- Conducted feature importance and correlation analyses with symptom severity, validated statistically.
Main Results:
- Four distinct communities were identified within the PSN, intermixing IBS patients and healthy controls.
- Each community displayed unique neurobiological profiles related to age, cognition, and IBS symptom severity.
- Key features included subcortical structures, corpus callosum, and cognitive indices (Language, Attention).
Conclusions:
- PSNs can identify brain-cognition communities that are independent of diagnostic categories in IBS.
- These communities present distinct neurobiological patterns, suggesting potential for personalized treatment approaches.
- The findings highlight the utility of PSNs in uncovering complex patterns within heterogeneous disorders like IBS.
Keywords:
FreeSurferRBANSbrain morphometrycognitioncommunity detectiongut–brain axisirritable bowel syndromenetwork analysispatient similarity networksMore Related Videos
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