Abstract

Though many investigations have reported associations between brain and behavioral phenotypes (e.g., delay discount as a measure of impulsive choice), our current understanding of such associations in terms of functional connectivity (FC) is limited due to the limiting factors of the most commonly used mass univariate approach. Here, we thus examine the association between impulsive choice and resting-state FC using a recently introduced, data-driven multivariate analysis (multivariate distance-based matrix regression) in 142 young healthy adults. This connectome-wide analysis identified regions associated with delay discount rates based on multifocal FC patterns, including medial temporal lobe, precuneus, premotor cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). Follow-up seed-based and network-level analyses revealed that high impulsivity was associated with greater inter-network connectivity between default mode and attention networks, correlated respectively with VMPFC and premotor cortex. These results provide novel insights for functional connectivities and networks associated with impulsive choice and target regions for its intervention. These results suggest an important role of large-scale brain network balance in impulsive choice.