The individual functional connectome is unique and stable over months to years

Neuroimage. 2019 Apr 1:189:676-687. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.02.002. Epub 2019 Feb 2.

Abstract

Functional connectomes computed from fMRI provide a means to characterize individual differences in the patterns of BOLD synchronization across regions of the entire brain. Using four resting-state fMRI datasets with a wide range of ages, we show that individual differences of the functional connectome are stable across 3 months to 1-2 years (and even detectable at above-chance levels across 3 years). Medial frontal and frontoparietal networks appear to be both unique and stable, resulting in high ID rates, as did a combination of these two networks. We conduct analyses demonstrating that these results are not driven by head motion. We also show that edges contributing the most to a successful ID tend to connect nodes in the frontal and parietal cortices, while edges contributing the least tend to connect cross-hemispheric homologs. Our results demonstrate that the functional connectome is stable across years and that high ID rates are not an idiosyncratic aspect of a specific dataset, but rather reflect stable individual differences in the functional connectivity of the brain.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Biological Variation, Individual*
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Connectome*
  • Datasets as Topic
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Longitudinal Studies
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Nerve Net / diagnostic imaging
  • Nerve Net / physiology*
  • Time Factors
  • Young Adult