From Maps to Multi-dimensional Network Mechanisms of Mental Disorders

Abstract

The development of advanced neuroimaging techniques and their deployment in large cohorts has enabled an assessment of functional and structural brain network architecture at an unprecedented level of detail. Across many temporal and spatial scales, network neuroscience has emerged as a central focus of intellectual efforts, seeking meaningful descriptions of brain networks and explanatory sets of network features that underlie circuit function in health and dysfunction in disease. However, the tools of network science commonly deployed provide insight into brain function at a fundamentally descriptive level, often failing to identify (patho-)physiological mechanisms that link system-level phenomena to the multiple hierarchies of brain function. Here we describe recently developed techniques stemming from advances in complex systems and network science that have the potential to overcome this limitation, thereby contributing mechanistic insights into neuroanatomy, functional dynamics, and pathology. Finally, we build on the Research Domain Criteria framework, highlighting the notion that mental illnesses can be conceptualized as dysfunctions of neural circuitry present across conventional diagnostic boundaries, to sketch how network-based methods can be combined with pharmacological, intermediate phenotype, genetic, and magnetic stimulation studies to probe mechanisms of psychopathology.

Neurofeedback: Principles, appraisal, and outstanding issues

“…For instance, traditional targets reflect a view whereby cognition would act as a frequency or amplitude modulator of local neuronal activity. They are also consistent with a conceptualization of neurological or psychiatric disorders as resulting from a dysfunctional activity pattern in a defined neural network that can be normalized by targeted stimulation (Braun et al., ; Christen & Müller, ). The general tenet is that stimulating/activating the (set of) regions usually responsible for the correct execution of a given cognitive task, or inhibiting those abnormally active in a given pathology should restore function/healthy behaviour.…”

Modular slowing of resting-state dynamic Functional Connectivity as a marker of cognitive dysfunction induced by sleep deprivation

“…Future studies may exploit the sensitivity of modular dFC analyses to inter-subject differences to track the development of cognitive deficits along Alzheimer's diseases longitudinal progression. In line with the hypothesis that a superior fluidity of dFC is a proxy for enhanced information processing capabilities (Braun et al, 2018), modular dFC speed could provide a novel marker of the notion of protective "cognitive reserve" (Stern et al 2009), whose neuroimaging characterizations have been been explored more often in terms of task-related activations (Stern, 2017) or structural aspects (Bartrés-Faz & Arenaza-Urquijo, 2011). However they are still less developed at the level of functional connectivity (Martinez et al, 2018) and, especially, of its dynamic features, while, on the contrary, these features are precisely the ones that should reflect ongoing neural computations -and their efficiency -more closely.…”

The Study of Psychopathology from the Network Analysis Perspective: A Systematic Review

“…Some authors, from very different perspectives, cogently argue that [3-5] making advances on the science of psychopathology and its treatments can be seriously hindered if these insufficient diagnostic systems are used [6, 7]. In recent years, the network approach has been gaining popularity in the field of psychopathology as one of the alternatives to the classification systems [8].…”