New research reveals relationship between particular brain circuits and different aspects of mental wellbeing

Associate Professor Miriam Klein-Flügge and colleagues looked at brain connectivity and mental health data from nearly 500 people. In particular, they looked at the connectivity of the amygdala – a brain region well known for its importance in emotion and reward processing. The paper, published in Nature Human Behaviour, shows how the improved level of detail about both brain connectivity and wellbeing made it possible to characterise the exact brain networks that relate to these distinct aspects of mental health. The findings indicate the potential benefit of considering mental wellbeing and the involved brain networks at a finer scale than before – a scale that more closely matches the brain’s functional organisation. The full paper, ‘Relationship between nuclei-specific amygdala connectivity and mental health dimensions in humans’, can be read in Nature Human Behaviour.