Many cognitive dysfunctions arise from disturbances along large-scale networks of the brain rather than a focal brain pathology, but little clinical translation of fMRI functional connectivity techniques has been made on targeting biomarkers for therapeutic possibilities. In their study “Defining Individual-Specific Functional Neuroanatomy for Precision Psychiatry”, Gratton et al. provided solutions for this limited translation by using precision fMRI approaches on individuals to see how large-scale systems of the brain interact. Functional connectivity can tell us how brain networks are altered with different brain damages, how they differ across individuals, how they change over the lifespan, and how they alter across different cognitive demands. The Midnight Scan Club (MSC) dataset consists of data from many tasks of different cognitive domains collected in multiple individuals across multiple days, so it was used to distinguish cortical network patterns that were either consistent across all measurements or varied across individuals, days, or tasks. It was found that functional networks of the brain are stable with features specific to individuals and some shared group patterns. Task effects on functional connectivity were individual-specific and stable over shorter time scales, suggesting that variability in functional connectivity was driven by noise. It was also concluded from datasets that the brain cannot be a generalizable representation of any individual, and there are brain network variations among every individual. The network variants show themselves as trait-like properties among individuals, indicating that these are good targets for clinical treatment strategies.
Gratton and colleagues furthered their research by experimenting how Parkinson’s Disease disrupts function across distributed brain networks. Using a large dataset of non-demented individuals with Parkinson’s Disease and healthy controls, it was found that Parkinson’s Disease is characterized by selective deficits in functional networks, with a diminished magnitude of connectivity suggesting a breakdown of affected networks. Large differences in functional connectivity were found within and between cortical and subcortical systems; more specifically, within and between sensorimotor, thalamic, and cerebellar networks. Functional network effects in Parkinson's Disease are complex and emergent, which is important for understanding heterogeneous clinical manifestations in Parkinson's Disease, crucial for future therapeutic developments.
From their findings, Gratton and colleagues indicated their interest in future studies to determine the neurobiology that underlies the control system and whether network variants can act like trait-like markers of individual differences in control. Researchers Naomi Friedman and Akira Miyake experimented how individual differences relate to the functional organization of executive functions in their study “Unity and Diversity of Executive Functions: Individual Differences as a Window on Cognitive Structure”. The high-level cognitive processes associated with executive functions control lower-level processes related to goal-directed behavior. Across multiple ages and populations, executive functions activate both common and specific neural areas that can be linked to individual differences in neural activation, volume, and connectivity. Investigating structural vs. functional resting-state connectivity in relation to individual differences showed that individual differences in structure and functional connectivity have important implications for the performance of different executive functioning tasks. Using anatomical MRI measures, better executive functioning was related to a reduced gray matter volume and cortical folding in different areas of the prefrontal cortex. Measuring fMRI resting-state networks, it was found that higher common executive functions were related to stronger coupling of a right frontoparietal network with the cerebellum and expansion of a dorsal attention network to include frontopolar and cerebellar regions. It was concluded that individuals with higher executive function have expanded networks even when they are not performing a challenging task. All people have the same executive function processes corresponding to multiple brain regions, but individuals have different levels of abilities due to the strength of connections between the prefrontal cortex and posterior brain regions. Evidently, instead of relying on a single brain model, individual differences in brain activation and connectivity must be considered when viewing the underlying functional organization of the brain and its systems. Identifying these individual network variants can provide targets for therapeutic interventions for a wide variety of diseases.
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