Architecture and relationships among cognition, mental health and other human domains revealed by network analysis perspective

Abstract

Despite the connectome or network “era”, the variety of individual facets (e.g., cognition, personality, mental health) are typically studied as separate watertight compartments. This study adopted advanced methodological approaches to (i) highlight a network depicting distinct domains of human mind and behavior, and to (ii) delineate their possible direct influences. Through an Exploratory Graph Analysis on the Human Connectome Project’s database, we found a network composed by seven separate but related domains - Mental Health, Externalizing problems, High-level Cognitive Functions, Basic Cognitive Functions, Substances use/abuse, Reward Delay Discounting and Pain - unveiling a low dimensionality of human mind and behavior. Finally, by applying Bayesian Networks on this model, we observed that some facets have also specific and oriented relationships, while other facets are instead independent from each other. In such a way, we drew a potential architecture of individual’s facets that can pave the way for future neuroimaging studies and clinical practice.