Efficient brain connectivity reconfiguration predicts higher marital quality and lower depression

Social information processing is important for successful romantic relationships and protection against depression, and depends on functional connectivity (FC) within and between large-scale networks. Functional architecture evident at rest is adaptively reconfigured during a task, and there were two possible associations between brain reconfiguration and behavioral performance during neurocognitive tasks (efficiency effect and distraction-based effect). This study examined the relationships between brain reconfiguration during social information processing and relationship-specific and more general social outcomes in marriage. Resting-state FC was compared with FC during social information processing (watching relationship-specific and general emotional stimuli) of 29 heterosexual couples, and the FC similarity (reconfiguration efficiency) was examined in relation to marital quality and depression 13 months later. The results indicated that wives’ reconfiguration efficiency (globally and in visual association network) during relationship-specific stimuli processing was related to their own marital quality. Higher reconfiguration efficiency (globally and in medial frontal, frontal-parietal, default mode, motor/sensory and salience networks) in wives during general emotional stimuli processing was related to their lower depression. These findings suggest efficiency effects on social outcomes during social cognition, especially among married women. The efficiency effects on relationship-specific and more general outcomes are, respectively, higher during relationship-specific stimuli or general emotional stimuli processing.