Centrality measures in psychological networks: A simulation study on identifying effective treatment targets.

The network theory of psychopathology suggests that symptoms in a disorder form a network and that identifying central symptoms within this network might be important for an effective and personalized treatment. However, recent evidence has been inconclusive. We analyzed contemporaneous idiographic networks of depression and anxiety symptoms. Two approaches were compared: a cascade-based attack where symptoms were deactivated in decreasing centrality order, and a normal attack where symptoms were deactivated based on original centrality estimates. Results showed that centrality measures significantly affected the attack's magnitude, particularly the number of components and average path length in both normal and cascade attacks. Degree centrality consistently had the highest impact on the network properties. This study emphasizes the importance of considering centrality measures when identifying treatment targets in psychological networks. Further research is needed to better understand the causal relationships and predictive capabilities of centrality measures in personalized treatments for mental disorders.

The nosographic structure of posttraumatic stress symptoms across trauma types: An exploratory network analysis approach.

The nosographic structure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remains unclear, and attempts to determine its symptomatic organization have been unsatisfactory. Several explanations have been suggested, and the impact of trauma type is receiving increasing attention. As little is known about the differential impact trauma type in the nosographic structure of PTSD, we explored the nosology of PTSD and the effect of trauma type on its symptomatic organization. We reanalyzed five cross-sectional psychopathological networks involving different trauma types, encompassing a broad range of traumatic events in veterans, war-related trauma in veterans, sexual abuse, terrorist attacks, and various traumatic events in refugees. The weighted topological overlap was used to estimate the networks and attribute weights to their links. Coexpression differential network analysis was used to identify the common and specific network structures of the connections across different trauma types and to determine the importance of symptoms across the networks. We found a set of symptoms with more common connections with other symptoms, suggesting that these might constitute the prototypical nosographic structure of PTSD. We also found a set of symptoms that had a high number of specific connections with other symptoms; these connections varied according to trauma type. The importance of symptoms across the common and specific networks was ascertained. The present findings offer new insights into the symptomatic organization of PTSD and support previous research on the impact of trauma type on the nosology of this disorder.

Exposure to Traumatic Events and Development of Psychotic Symptoms in a Prison Population: A Network Analysis Approach.

Previous studies consistently observed an association between exposure to traumatic events and psychotic symptoms. However, little is known about the differential impact of distinct traumatic events and the role of general symptoms in mediating this relationship. Thus, our study aimed to explore the differential association of several traumatic events to the psychotic symptoms in a sample of prisoners and whether this association is mediated by general symptoms. The total sample from the Survey of Psychiatric Morbidity Among Prisoners in England and Wales (N = 3039; 75.4% male) was used. Participants completed a list of traumatic events experienced before reclusion, the Psychosis Screening Questionnaire, Clinical Review Schedule-Revised. Network analysis was used to estimate the network of interactions between traumatic events and general and psychotic symptoms. Shortest paths analysis was performed to identify the different development trajectories. Results suggested that memory problems, compulsions, and irritability might be key mediating symptoms for most traumatic events. However, sexual abuse showed alternative mediators that might be specific of this traumatic event. Finally, the traumatic events, suffered from violence at work, separation/divorce and been homeless showed direct associations with specific psychotic symptoms.

The Differential Role of Central and Bridge Symptoms in Deactivating Psychopathological Networks.

The network model of psychopathology suggests that central and bridge symptoms represent promising treatment targets because they may accelerate the deactivation of the network of interactions between the symptoms of mental disorders. However, the evidence confirming this hypothesis is scarce. This study re-analyzed a convenience sample of 51 cross-sectional psychopathological networks published in previous studies addressing diverse mental disorders or clinically relevant problems. In order to address the hypothesis that central and bridge symptoms are valuable treatment targets, this study simulated five distinct attack conditions on the psychopathological networks by deactivating symptoms based on two characteristics of central symptoms (degree and strength), two characteristics of bridge symptoms (overlap and bridgeness), and at random. The differential impact of the characteristics of these symptoms was assessed in terms of the magnitude and the extent of the attack required to achieve a maximum impact on the number of components, average path length, and connectivity. Only moderate evidence was obtained to sustain the hypothesis that central and bridge symptoms constitute preferential treatment targets. The results suggest that the degree, strength, and bridgeness attack conditions are more effective than the random attack condition only in increasing the number of components of the psychopathological networks. The degree attack condition seemed to perform better than the strength, bridgeness, and overlap attack conditions. Overlapping symptoms evidenced limited impact on the psychopathological networks. The need to address the basic mechanisms underlying the structure and dynamics of psychopathological networks through the expansion of the current methodological framework and its consolidation in more robust theories is stressed.