Alterations of dynamic redundancy of functional brain subnetworks in Alzheimer’s disease and major depression disorders

The human brain is not only efficiently but also “redundantly” connected. The redundancy design could help the brain maintain resilience to disease attacks. This paper explores subnetwork-level redundancy dynamics and the potential of such metrics in disease studies. As such, we looked into specific functional subnetworks, including those associated with high-level functions. We investigated how the subnetwork redundancy dynamics change along with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) progression and with major depressive disorder (MDD), two major disorders that could share similar subnetwork alterations. We found an increased dynamic redundancy of the subcortical-cerebellum subnetwork and its connections to other high-order subnetworks in the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD compared to the normal control (NC). With gained spatial specificity, we found such a redundancy index was sensitive to disease symptoms and could act as a protective mechanism to prevent the collapse of the brain network and functions. The dynamic redundancy of the medial frontal subnetwork and its connections to the frontoparietal subnetwork was also found decreased in MDD compared to NC. The spatial specificity of the redundancy dynamics changes may provide essential knowledge for a better understanding of shared neural substrates in AD and MDD.