Long-term neural and physiological phenotyping of a single human

Poldrack, Russell A. and Laumann, Timothy O. and Koyejo, Oluwasanmi and Gregory, Brenda and Hover, Ashleigh and Chen, Mei Yen and Gorgolewski, Krzysztof J. and Luci, Jeffrey and Joo, Sung Jun and Boyd, Ryan L. and Hunicke-Smith, Scott and Simpson, Zack Booth and Caven, Thomas and Sochat, Vanessa and Shine, James M. and Gordon, Evan and Snyder, Abraham Z. and Adeyemo, Babatunde and Petersen, Steven E. and Glahn, David C. and Mckay, D. Reese and Curran, Joanne E. and Göring, Harald H.H. and Carless, Melanie A. and Blangero, John and Dougherty, Robert and Leemans, Alexander and Handwerker, Daniel A. and Frick, Laurie and Marcotte, Edward M. and Mumford, Jeanette A. (2015) Long-term neural and physiological phenotyping of a single human. Nature Communications, 6. ISSN 2041-1723

Abstract

Psychiatric disorders are characterized by major fluctuations in psychological function over the course of weeks and months, but the dynamic characteristics of brain function over this timescale in healthy individuals are unknown. Here, as a proof of concept to address this question, we present the MyConnectome project. An intensive phenome-wide assessment of a single human was performed over a period of 18 months, including functional and structural brain connectivity using magnetic resonance imaging, psychological function and physical health, gene expression and metabolomics. A reproducible analysis workflow is provided, along with open access to the data and an online browser for results. We demonstrate dynamic changes in brain connectivity over the timescales of days to months, and relations between brain connectivity, gene expression and metabolites. This resource can serve as a testbed to study the joint dynamics of human brain and metabolic function over time, an approach that is critical for the development of precision medicine strategies for brain disorders.