The Human Connectome Project (HCP) was an National Institutes of Health funded project designed to improve methods for assessing brain structure and function and to acquire a large data set in relatively healthy adults that would enhance our understanding of normative patterns of brain connectivity and their relationships to behavior relevant to understanding psychopathology (i.e., depression, anxiety, substance use, cognitive function, social function, etc.). These efforts include initiatives such as the Human Connectome Project 11, 12, the United Kingdom Biobank Project 13 and the recent Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study. In turn, such technological advances have provided the genesis for major efforts in the field to develop a clearer understanding of the normative function of brain circuits in health, which many consider to be critical in order to understand how disruptions in such circuits contribute to the development of psychiatric disorders. Our ability to empirically examine hypotheses around circuit level abnormalities in psychiatric disorders has been made possible by advances in human neuroimaging technologies. Further, most psychiatric disorders are likely to be neurodevelopmental in nature, either because symptoms arise during childhood (e.g., autism) or because the interactions between genes and environment that shape brain circuits and their function begin early in life, even if the onset of the disorder becomes evident only in adolescence or adulthood. Such circuit level abnormalities clearly reflect a complex interplay between genes and environment, with most, if not all, psychiatric disorders reflecting both genetic underpinnings 1– 5 and a host of environmental factors 6– 10. Finally, I end on future directions in terms of extensions of the Human Connectome Project methods across the lifespan and into manifest illness, as well as a discussion of potential treatment implications.Ī core principal of modern “Biological Psychiatry” is that psychiatric disorders arise from abnormalities in brain function – in other words, dysfunction of brain circuits that support human behavior. I then describe some of the new findings from the Human Connectome Project about neural circuits and their relationships to behavior that may be particularly relevant to psychopathology. I focus on the methods developed by the Human Connectome Project that may be particularly relevant to studies of psychopathology, outline some of the key findings in terms of what constitutes a brain region, and highlight new information about the nature and stability of brain circuits. The focus of this review will be on the use of resting state functional connectivity (rsfcMRI) to assess brain circuits, the advances in this field generated by the Human Connectome Project, and the relevance of these advances for understanding neural circuit dysfunction in psychopathology. These advances have provided the basis for recent efforts in the field to develop a more complex understanding of the function of brain circuits in health and of their relationship to behavior, which in turns provides a foundation for our understanding of how disruptions in such circuits contribute to the development of psychiatric disorders. Our ability to examine hypotheses around circuit level abnormalities in psychiatric disorders has been made possible by advances in human neuroimaging technologies. A key tenet of modern psychiatry is that psychiatric disorders arise from abnormalities in brain circuits that support human behavior.
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