ArticlePsychological medicine2023
Pre-COVID brain functional connectome features prospectively predict emergence of distress symptoms after onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Neuroimaging insights into the psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.Translational psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Emotions in Times of Pandemic Crisis among Italian Children: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Pooled it
- Distinct brain structural abnormalities in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and substance use disorders: A comparative meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Cortical Network Overconnectivity Relates to Sensory, Cognitive, and Social Dimensions in Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- Predictive neural signature of internet gaming disorder severity revealed by cross-network connectivity.Psychoradiology · 2026Article
- Brain Microstructural Alterations in Children Post-COVID-19 Infection Through VBM, SBM, and Structural Covariance Network Analysis.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- COVID-19 related cognitive, structural and functional brain changes among Italian adolescents and young adults: a multimodal longitudinal case-control study.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
- Aberrant brain network topology in youth with a familial risk for bipolar disorder: a task-based fMRI connectome study.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2024Article
- Multivariate patterns of brain functional connectome associated with COVID-19-related negative affect symptoms.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
- Pre-COVID brain network topology prospectively predicts social anxiety alterations during the COVID-19 pandemic.Neurobiology of stress · 2023Article
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11 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundPersistent psychological distress associated with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been well documented. This study aimed to identify pre-COVID brain functional connectome that predicts pandemic-related distress symptoms among young adults.
methodsBaseline neuroimaging studies and assessment of general distress using the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale were performed with 100 healthy individuals prior to wide recognition of the health risks associated with the emergence of COVID-19. They were recontacted for the Impact of Event Scale-Revised and the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist in the period of community-level outbreaks, and for follow-up distress evaluation again 1 year later. We employed the network-based statistic approach to identify connectome that predicted the increase of distress based on 136-region-parcellation with assigned network membership. Predictive performance of connectome features and causal relations were examined by cross-validation and mediation analyses.
resultsThe connectome features that predicted emergence of distress after COVID contained 70 neural connections. Most within-network connections were located in the default mode network (DMN), and affective network-DMN and dorsal attention network-DMN links largely constituted between-network pairs. The hippocampus emerged as the most critical hub region. Predictive models of the connectome remained robust in cross-validation. Mediation analyses demonstrated that COVID-related posttraumatic stress partially explained the correlation of connectome to the development of general distress.
conclusionsBrain functional connectome may fingerprint individuals with vulnerability to psychological distress associated with the COVID pandemic. Individuals with brain neuromarkers may benefit from the corresponding interventions to reduce the risk or severity of distress related to fear of COVID-related challenges.
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