ArticleNature neuroscience2019
Advancing functional connectivity research from association to causation.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 173 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
173 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The research progress on effective connectivity in adolescent depression based on resting-state fMRI.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Enhanced motor recovery in stroke patients through dual-modal intervention: motor imagery and task-oriented robot training.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2025Trial
- Structure Guides Function: Beyond Pairwise Neural Interactions.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2026Review
- Temporal stability of functional network configurations and its relationship to cognition and psychopathology in early psychoses.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- State-dependent signal flow hierarchy in the human cerebral cortex.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- Causal Dynamics of Social Gaze in Primate Prefrontal-Amygdala Networks Revealed by Dynamic Bayesian Modeling.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Toward Optimizing Thalamic Deep Brain Stimulation for Cortical Modulation: A Surrogate Brain Approach.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Resting-State vs. Task-Based Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Neurosurgical Planning: A Narrative Review of Clinical Applications.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- The role of the subcortical structures in subthreshold depression: evidence from static and dynamic functional connectivity.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- The dual interpretation of edge time series: Time-varying connectivity versus statistical interaction.iScience · 2026Article
- Distance-related functional connectivity alterations in first-episode, drug-naïve major depressive disorder: a resting-state fMRI study with atlas-based neurotransmitter correlates.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Using connectome-based predictive models to reveal the systems standardized tests and clinical symptoms are reflecting.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Synergistic and redundant information dynamics exhibit dissociable alterations across schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental conditions.Brain informatics · 2026Article
- Opportunities and pitfalls of data contextualization in neuroimaging.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Altered flow of information in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- A Deep Learning Framework for Spatiotemporal Modeling of Visual Task fMRI.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Spectral dynamic causal modeling of effective connectivity across multiple brain networks in pilot trainees.iScience · 2026Article
- State-Dependent Organization of Microscale Functional Circuitry in Visual Cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Competitive interactions shape mammalian brain network dynamics and computation.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
113 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cognition and behavior emerge from brain network interactions, such that investigating causal interactions should be central to the study of brain function. Approaches that characterize statistical associations among neural time series-functional connectivity (FC) methods-are likely a good starting point for estimating brain network interactions. Yet only a subset of FC methods ('effective connectivity') is explicitly designed to infer causal interactions from statistical associations. Here we incorporate best practices from diverse areas of FC research to illustrate how FC methods can be refined to improve inferences about neural mechanisms, with properties of causal neural interactions as a common ontology to facilitate cumulative progress across FC approaches. We further demonstrate how the most common FC measures (correlation and coherence) reduce the set of likely causal models, facilitating causal inferences despite major limitations. Alternative FC measures are suggested to immediately start improving causal inferences beyond these common FC measures.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.