Cognitive Sciences and Psychology
Title : | Computational modeling of the structural balance of intrinsic functional brain networks in health and brain disorder. |
Area of research : | Cognitive Sciences and Psychology |
Focus area : | Neuroinformatics |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Subhadip Paul, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational And Research Institute, West Bengal |
Timeline Start Year : | 2024 |
Timeline End Year : | 2027 |
Contact info : | subhadippaul@gmail.com |
Details
Executive Summary : | Time-dependent functional activities of human brain regions are known to support our behaviours. The functional organization of brain is often modeled as a graph-theory-based complex network, where nodes are brain regions and the cross-correlations between time-dependent brain functional activities of brain regions are weighted edges of the network. In a network, a node may have cooperative interactions with some nodes and competitive interactions with other nodes which are denoted by the positive and negative weighted edges respectively. Time-dependent intrinsic brain activities show such cooperative-competitive relations between different brain regions. In the graph theory-based mathematical models of functional brain networks, these competitive interactions (negative edge weights) are commonly ignored. However, not accounting for competitive relations may furnish an inaccurate characterization of the intrinsic brain functional network organization in health and diseases. According to the theory of structural balance, a network comprising cooperative and competitive relationships between the nodes, there will be a general propensity for the network to be globally balanced. Cannabis/ Marijuana addiction, a potential risk factor for schizophrenia, is the 2nd most common substance use disorder in India. Therefore, understanding how the functional brain network organization is disrupted in cannabis addiction is important. However, the extent to which structural balance theory is valid in functional brain networks, whether functional brain networks in health and in cannabis addiction are more globally balanced than the comparable random networks, and which regions of human brain are most/least balanced in health and cannabis addiction is not known. It is also unknown how nodal (brain regional) organization of the structural balance of functional brain networks is affected in cannabis users. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brains of healthy, cannabis-unexposed, and cannabis-exposed individuals, I will extract time series of brain activities from the different regions of each brain and estimate the cross-correlations between the regional brain activities. I will represent this cross-correlation matrix with a weighted, undirected signed network and for the first time examine whether the global organization of functional brain networks is more balanced than the comparable random networks in health and cannabis use disorder. I will also examine which regions of the brain are structurally most/least balanced in health and in cannabis addiction. Finally, I will examine how cannabis exposure disrupts structural balance of brain regions compared to cannabis-unexposed healthy individuals. The proposed research will generate novel insights into the organization of the structural balance of intrinsic functional brain networks in health and cannabis use disorder and help design new interventions for cannabis use disorder. |
Total Budget (INR): | 6,60,000 |
Organizations involved