Shared brain and genetic architectures between mental health and physical activity

Abstract

Physical activity is correlated with, and effectively treats various forms of psychopathology. However, whether biological correlates of physical activity and psychopathology are shared remains unclear. Here, we examined the extent to which the neural and genetic architecture of physical activity and mental health are shared. Using data from the UK Biobank (N = 6389), we applied canonical correlation analysis to estimate associations between the amplitude and connectivity strength of subnetworks of three major neurocognitive networks (default mode, DMN; salience, SN; central executive networks, CEN) with accelerometer-derived measures of physical activity and self-reported mental health measures (primarily of depression, anxiety disorders, neuroticism, subjective well-being, and risk-taking behaviors). We estimated the genetic correlation between mental health and physical activity measures, as well as putative causal relationships by applying linkage disequilibrium score regression, genomic structural equational modeling, and latent causal variable analysis to genome-wide association summary statistics (GWAS N = 91,105–500,199). Physical activity and mental health were associated with connectivity strength and amplitude of the DMN, SN, and CEN (r’s ≥ 0.12, p’s < 0.048). These neural correlates exhibited highly similar loading patterns across mental health and physical activity models even when accounting for their shared variance. This suggests a largely shared brain network architecture between mental health and physical activity. Mental health and physical activity (including sleep) were also genetically correlated (|rg| = 0.085–0.121), but we found no evidence for causal relationships between them. Collectively, our findings provide empirical evidence that mental health and physical activity have shared brain and genetic architectures and suggest potential candidate subnetworks for future studies on brain mechanisms underlying beneficial effects of physical activity on mental health.

RETRACTED: How Does Physical Activity Enhance the Subjective Well-Being of University Students? A Chain Mediation of Cognitive Reappraisal and Resilience

“…However, some scholars have found that the effects of different exercise intensities on people’s subjective well-being vary, and in particular, moderate-intensity physical activity has the best effect on people’s subjective well-being [ 17 ]. Moreover, evidence that physical activity affects people’s subjective well-being can be inferred from genetic and cognitive neuroscience studies, but the physiological mechanisms need to be further clarified [ 18 ]. In summary, Hypothesis 1 is proposed: physical activity positively affects university students’ subjective well-being.…”

Polygenic architecture of brain structure and function, behaviors, and psychopathologies in children

“…Conversely, a family history of mental health issues consistently exhibited negative loadings, particularly within the first CCA component for sMRI (e.g., maternal nervous breakdown, paternal employment or legal troubles), dMRI streamline count (e.g., parental employment/legal troubles, alcohol use, depression), and SST fMRI (e.g., parental employment/legal troubles). These bivariate associations between behavior, genetic liability, and the brain have been previously reported[65][66][67][68][69] . Building on this foundation, our findings show the novel tripartite associations among genetics, brain IDPs, and behaviors, suggesting a gene-brain-behavior pathway.In predicting cognitive outcomes, multivariate patterns of GPSs trained with machine learning showed moderate to good performance.…”

Step-by-step to more creativity: The number of steps in everyday life is related to creative ideation performance.

“…A similar argumentation is valid with respect to chronic physical activity, where it is also plausible that people with a higher creative potential habitually walk more often and for longer periods of time. It should also be mentioned that other, hidden variables (like genes or brain architecture) could exert an influence on both physical activity and creativity (see, e.g., Zhang et al, 2022, for mental health). However, available experimental studies clearly argue for the enhancing effect of acute and chronic physical activity (Rominger, Schneider, et al, 2022), and the present study adds to these observations.…”