Separable and overlapping functional connectome architecture for impulsivity and anxiety

Abstract

While individuals with impulsivity tend to engage in risk-taking or unplanned behaviors, those with anxiety demonstrate risk avoidance or excessive worrying, seemingly incongruent with one another. However, a subset of individuals exhibits both traits. Here, we aim to examine separable functional connectivity patterns based on impulsivity and anxiety to better understand these individual differences. We utilized a publicly available fMRI dataset to compare rsFC between the High Impulsivity (HI) group and High Anxiety (HA) group. Additionally, we identified specific networks within the High Impulsivity & High Anxiety (HIHA) group by comparing them with both the HI and HA groups. The HI group exhibited heightened functional connectivity mainly consisted of the cerebellum, whereas the HA group displayed increased connectivity primarily involving the medial frontal network (MFN) and the motor networks. Conversely, the HIHA group demonstrated decreased MFN–cerebellar connectivity while also showing increased connectivity within the MFN. These findings suggest that insufficient regulation of the MFN may have contributed to the failure to control impulsive and anxious traits. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.