The relationship between spatial configuration and functional connectivity of brain regions
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- Washington University in St. Louis, United States
- King's College London, United Kingdom
- Radboud University Medical Centre, Netherlands
Abstract
Brain connectivity is often considered in terms of the communication between functionally distinct brain regions. Many studies have investigated the extent to which patterns of coupling strength between multiple neural populations relates to behaviour. For example, studies have used 'functional connectivity fingerprints' to characterise individuals' brain activity. Here, we investigate the extent to which the exact spatial arrangement of cortical regions interacts with measures of brain connectivity. We find that the shape and exact location of brain regions interact strongly with the modelling of brain connectivity, and present evidence that the spatial arrangement of functional regions is strongly predictive of non-imaging measures of behaviour and lifestyle. We believe that, in many cases, cross-subject variations in the spatial configuration of functional brain regions are being interpreted as changes in functional connectivity. Therefore, a better understanding of these effects is important when interpreting the relationship between functional imaging data and cognitive traits.
Data availability
-
Human Connectome ProjectFreely available upon agreeing with Open Access Data Use Terms and Restricted Data Use Terms ( https://www.humanconnectome.org/study/hcp-young-adult/document/quick-reference-open-access-vs-restricted-data).
Article and author information
Author details
Janine Diane Bijsterbosch
Funding
National Institutes of Health (1U54MH091657)
- David C Van Essen
Wellcome (098369/Z/12/Z)
- Stephen M Smith
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (864-12-003)
- Christian F Beckmann
Wellcome (091509/Z/10/Z)
- Stephen M Smith
Wellcome (203139/Z/16/Z)
- Stephen M Smith
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: HCP data were acquired using protocols approved by the Washington University institutional review board. Informed consent was obtained from subjects. Anonymised data are publicly available from ConnectomeDB (db.humanconnectome.org; Hodge et al., 2016). Certain parts of the dataset used in this study, such as the age of the subjects, are available subject to restricted data usage terms, requiring researchers to ensure that the anonymity of subjects is protected (Van Essen et al., 2013).
Copyright
© 2018, Bijsterbosch et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 6,852
- views
-
- 1,143
- downloads
-
- 204
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
The relationship between spatial configuration and functional connectivity of brain regions
eLife 7:e32992.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32992
Further reading
-
The exact location of certain brain regions is linked to intelligence, life satisfaction and other behavioural factors.
-
- Genetics and Genomics
- Neuroscience
Thermal nociception in Caenorhabditis elegans is regulated by the Ca²+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase CMK-1, but its downstream effectors have remained unclear. Here, we combined in vitro kinase assays with mass-spectrometry-based phosphoproteomics to identify hundreds of CMK-1 substrates, including the calcineurin A subunit TAX-6, phosphorylated within its conserved regulatory domain. Genetic and pharmacological analyses reveal multiple antagonistic interactions between CMK-1 and calcineurin signaling in modulating both naive thermal responsiveness and adaptation to repeated noxious stimuli. Cell-specific manipulations indicate that CMK-1 acts in AFD and ASER thermo-sensory neurons, while TAX-6 functions in FLP thermo-sensory neurons and downstream interneurons. Since CMK-1 and TAX-6 act in distinct cell types, the phosphorylation observed in vitro might not directly underlie the behavioral phenotype. Instead, the opposing effects seem to arise from their distributed roles within the sensory circuit. Overall, our study provides (1) a resource of candidate CMK-1 targets for further dissecting CaM kinase signaling and (2) evidence of a previously unrecognized, circuit-level antagonism between CMK-1 and calcineurin pathways. These findings highlight a complex interplay of signaling modules that modulate thermal nociception and adaptation, offering new insights into potentially conserved mechanisms that shape nociceptive plasticity and pain (de)sensitization in more complex nervous systems.
