A common brain function feature has been found across different mental disorders

Across different psychiatric diagnoses, brain networks showed weaker reconfiguration between rest and task performance. This was demonstrated by a study from scientists at Rutgers and Yale Universities and their colleagues, published in Nature Communications.

The team analyzed data from 219 adults: 134 individuals with psychiatric diagnoses and 85 without a corresponding history. The sample included depression, anxiety and bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, ADHD, OCD, and other conditions.

Participants underwent functional MRI at rest and while performing tasks involving cognitive control and emotional processing. A total of six recordings were used for each person. Researchers assessed the brain's functional connections based on coordinated changes in activity across different regions.

On average, in people with diagnoses, the organization of networks changed less between recordings. The authors describe this as a "flattening" of dynamics: the brain maintains a more similar configuration when task demands change.

The scientists also compared the scans with 110 clinical, behavioral, and cognitive measures. The resulting symptom profiles cut across conventional diagnostic boundaries: people with different diagnoses could have similar combinations of difficulties.

The models were tested on separately held-out data from 43 participants. The results support the study of shared mechanisms across disorders, but do not yet allow for making diagnoses based on MRI. Some diagnostic subgroups were very small, and the relationship between network dynamics and symptoms requires independent validation.