Extended Data Fig. 6: Mediating effects of gray and white matter regions on physical-mental health associations.
From: Brain, lifestyle and environmental pathways linking physical and mental health
A structural equation model (SEM) was fitted for each gray matter region, white matter tract and for each organ system. Significant mediating effects (z-statistic) of brain regions (p < 0.05, two-sided, FDR-corrected for 33 gray and 27 white matter regions) were averaged across 7 organ systems to provide a consensus mediating effect map for overall mental health. The overall mental health (MH) score was indicated by the first principal component across three measures, that is, depression, anxiety and neuroticism. a, The average z-statistic for cortical gray matter volume (Desikan-Killianny atlas) are rendered on cortical surface for visualization. Word clouds show top‐ranked cortical and subcortical regions. The font size is scaled according to the absolute value of the average z-statistic. b, Similarly, the average z-statistic for regional fractional anisotropy (JHU ICBM-DTI-81 atlas) are rendered in standard Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI)-152 anatomical space. Word clouds show top‐ranked white matter tracts. The font size is scaled according to the absolute value of the average z-statistic.
