Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
194,161 studies31 sourcesUpdated 28 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Communications Biology

Physiological arousal as a predominant source of individual differences in functional brain networks

  • Justine A. Hill1
  • Tianye Zhai1
  • Cole Korponay2,3
  • Julia C. Welsh1
  • Betty Jo Salmeron1
  • Thomas J. Ross1
  • Yihong Yang1
  • Blaise deB. Frederick2,3
  • Amy C. Janes1
  1. 1National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, MD USA
  2. 2McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA USA
  3. 3Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA USA
Read full textPDFDOICite

Abstract

Characterizing individual variation in brain network organization is essential for developing fMRI-based biomarkers in precision psychiatry. We show that arousal, assessed by systemic low-frequency oscillation (sLFO) amplitude in the fMRI signal, is strongly associated with interindividual variability in functional brain network properties (e.g., R = 0.70 for default mode network (DMN)–dorsal attention network (DAN) connectivity; R = −0.63 for DMN dynamics), with replication across independent sessions and samples. These relationships persist after regressing the sLFO out of the BOLD signal and are replicated using established physiological arousal indices, indicating that arousal-related physiology significantly contributes to variability in brain network measures. Pharmacological manipulation shows that increased arousal under catecholaminergic agonism is associated with enhanced network differentiation, whereas antagonism produces the opposite effect. These findings highlight arousal-related physiological processes as a major contributor to individual differences in functional brain network properties as estimated with fMRI and indicate that catecholaminergic modulation is associated with these effects via arousal-related processes.

Related

  1. Functional Network Organization Underlying Individual Differences in False Feedback Susceptibility: A Graph Theoretical Analysis.
    J Patchitt, T Karapanagiotidis, S N Garfinkel +4
    Human brain mappingPeer-reviewedCC BYFull textNeuroscienceEurope PMCPMC
  2. Respiration and individual differences shape behavioral and inter-brain synchronization
    W. YI, C. Palmer
    bioRxivPreprintAll rights reservedFull textNeurosciencebioRxiv
  3. Individual Differences in Dopaminergic Modulation of Exploration–Exploitation Behavior
    Elke Smith, Hendrik Theis, Thilo van Eimeren +5
    The Journal of NeurosciencePeer-reviewedPublisher termsFull textNeurosciencePMC
  4. Why we hug: Individual differences predict emotional touch memories
    Anna Lena Dueren, Paul M Jenkinson, Aikaterini Vafeiadou +5
    PLOS OnePeer-reviewedCC BYFull textNeuroscienceEpidemiology & public healthPLOSEurope PMCPMC
  5. Temporal stability for individual differences in both habit learning and expression
    P. Martinez-Lopez, J. J. Leon, F. Garre-Frutos +5
    bioRxivPreprintCC BY-NCFull textNeurosciencebioRxiv

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{hill2026physiological,
  title = {{Physiological arousal as a predominant source of individual differences in functional brain networks}},
  author = {Justine A. Hill and Tianye Zhai and Cole Korponay and Julia C. Welsh and Betty Jo Salmeron and Thomas J. Ross and Yihong Yang and Blaise deB. Frederick and Amy C. Janes},
  journal = {Communications Biology},
  year = {2026},
  month = jul,
  doi = {10.1038/s42003-026-10624-y},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-026-10624-y},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Physiological arousal as a predominant source of individual differences in functional brain networks
AU  - Justine A. Hill
AU  - Tianye Zhai
AU  - Cole Korponay
AU  - Julia C. Welsh
AU  - Betty Jo Salmeron
AU  - Thomas J. Ross
AU  - Yihong Yang
AU  - Blaise deB. Frederick
AU  - Amy C. Janes
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/10
JO  - Communications Biology
DO  - 10.1038/s42003-026-10624-y
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-026-10624-y
AB  - Characterizing individual variation in brain network organization is essential for developing fMRI-based biomarkers in precision psychiatry. We show that arousal, assessed by systemic low-frequency oscillation (sLFO) amplitude in the fMRI signal, is strongly associated with interindividual variability in functional brain network properties (e.g., R = 0.70 for default mode network (DMN)–dorsal attention network (DAN) connectivity; R = −0.63 for DMN dynamics), with replication across independent sessions and samples. These relationships persist after regressing the sLFO out of the BOLD signal and are replicated using established physiological arousal indices, indicating that arousal-related physiology significantly contributes to variability in brain network measures. Pharmacological manipulation shows that increased arousal under catecholaminergic agonism is associated with enhanced network differentiation, whereas antagonism produces the opposite effect. These findings highlight arousal-related physiological processes as a major contributor to individual differences in functional brain network properties as estimated with fMRI and indicate that catecholaminergic modulation is associated with these effects via arousal-related processes.
SN  - 2399-3642
ER  -