Biology subjects

Waite, L.

Publications and source records attributed to Waite, L..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Distinct spatial associations of adversity with hippocampal macro- and microstructure in early adolescence

Youth adversity has been associated with alterations in hippocampal structure; however, it remains unclear whether different forms of adversity relate distinctly to its organization across the anterior-posterior and proximal-distal axes. Here, we investigated the associations of different types of adversity with multiple structural properties of the hippocampus in 5,263 early adolescents from the ABCD Study. Hippocampal macrostructure was characterized using volume, thickness, and gyrification, whereas T1w/T2w ratio served as an in vivo proxy for microstructure. Adversity was assessed at the family level using questionnaires on family environment and parenting, and at the socioeconomic level using income-to-needs ratio and neighborhood disadvantage measured by the Area Deprivation Index. Associations were examined for each adversity type separately in multi-variate analyses and for cumulative adversity exposure in univariate models. Hippocampal features were obtained using HippUnfold, an advanced automatic segmentation approach that accounts for interindividual folding variability, and were analyzed globally as well as across the hippocampal anterior-posterior and proximal-distal axes. Socioeconomic measures showed widespread associations with hippocampal macrostructure across the whole hippocampus and both anatomical axes, whereas associations with T1w/T2w ratio were limited and observed only for neighborhood disadvantage along the anterior-posterior axis. Cumulative adversity exposure was consistently associated with alterations in CA1 and subiculum across volume, thickness, and gyrification, but not T1w/T2w ratio. Together, these findings suggest that different types of adversity exhibit distinct spatial associations across complementary hippocampal macro- and microstructural features, highlighting regional variation in the susceptibility of the developing hippocampus to environmental adversity.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Individual differences reveal distinct age and pubertal contributions to the refinement of the functional cortical hierarchy during adolescence

The development of the functional cortical hierarchy, spanning sensorimotor to association systems, is exclusively studied as a function of age. During adolescence, this overlooks puberty as a major neurodevelopmental driver and source of variability. We studied sensorimotor-association axis refinement longitudinally (6323 observations across 4919 subjects), leveraging individual differences to disentangle chronological age from pubertal effects. We derived low dimensional features of sensorimotor-association axis development from resting-state functional connectomes, revealing substantial inter-individual heterogeneity in maturational trajectories that challenge group-level developmental trends and milestones. Then, we demonstrate independent effects of age and pubertal stage on sensorimotor-association axis refinement through the polarization of the cortical hierarchy. We further show that coordinated system-level shifts in network topology reflect an ongoing specialization of functional connectivity profiles across all major functional networks. Our findings frame adolescent hierarchical functional cortical maturation as an individualized, multifactorial phenomenon shaped by distinct chronological age and pubertal processes.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Can we predict sleep health based on brain features? A large-scale machine learning study

BackgroundsSeveral correlational or group comparison evidence highlighted robust associations between sleep health and macro-scale brain organization. However, inter-individual variability is critical in such interplay. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate the role of brain imaging features in predicting diverse sleep health-related characteristics at the individual subject level using the Machine Learning (ML) approach. MethodsA sample of 28,088 participants from the UK Biobank was employed to calculate 4677 structural and functional neuroimaging markers. Then, we employed them to predict self-reported insomnia symptoms, sleep duration, easiness of getting up in the morning, chronotype, daily nap, daytime sleepiness, and snoring. To assess the predictability of brain features, we built seven different linear and nonlinear ML models for each sleep health-related characteristic. ResultsWe performed extensive ML analyses that involved more than 19 years of compute time. We observed relatively low performance in predicting all sleep health-related characteristics from brain images (e.g., balanced accuracy ranging between 0.50-0.59). Across all models, the best performance achieved was 0.59, using a linear ML model to predict the ease of getting up in the morning. In fact, a similar performance was achieved with models trained solely on age and sex, indicating that these demographic factors might be the ones driving the predictions. ConclusionsThe low capability of multimodal neuroimaging markers in predicting sleep health-related characteristics, even under extensive ML optimization in a large population sample, suggests a complex relationship between sleep health and brain organization.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Test Retest Reliability of Meta Analytic Networks During Naturalistic Viewing

Functional connectivity analyses have given considerable insights into human brain function and organization. As research moves towards clinical application, test-retest reliability has become a main focus of the field. So far, the majority of studies have relied on resting-state paradigms to examine brain connectivity, based on its low demand and ease of implementation. However, the reliability of resting-state measures is mostly moderate, potentially due to its unconstrained nature. Recently, naturalistic viewing paradigms have gained popularity because they probe the human brain under more ecologically valid conditions, thereby possibly increasing reliability. Therefore, we here compared the reliability of graph metrics extracted from resting-state and naturalistic viewing in functional networks, across two sessions. We show that naturalistic viewing can increase reliability over resting-state, but that its effect varies between stimuli and networks. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the effect of naturalistic viewing differs between two cohorts with Asian and European cultural backgrounds. Taken together, our study encourages the use of naturalistic viewing to increase reliability, but emphasizes the need to carefully select the appropriate stimulus and network for the respective research question.

neuroscience↗