A continuous cost–efficiency spectrum governs brain-wide communication and cognitive reconfiguration
Abstract
Information communication in the brain must balance efficient functional integration with the metabolic and physical costs of long-range connectivity. How this cost–efficiency balance is implemented in large-scale communication networks, and how it adapts across cognitive states and pathology, remains poorly understood. In this study, by systematically tuning the strength of distance constraints in a dynamical model, we revealed a continuum of effective connectivity (EC) architectures, ranging from localized low-cost architectures to globally integrated high-efficiency configurations. We show that large-scale brain communication is organized along a continuous cost–efficiency trade-off spectrum, which serves as a latent scaffold for flexible network reconfiguration across cognitive states. Empirical resting EC occupies a balanced region on this spectrum, near a knee point where cost is already substantially reduced without a comparably large loss of efficiency. Cognitive task engagement dynamically shifts the brain's operating point along the same spectrum, toward higher-cost, higher-efficiency regimes through enhanced between-network interactions. In major depressive disorder, this state-dependent reorganization is blunted, revealing an impaired access to higher-efficiency regimes. Together, these findings suggest that cognitive flexibility and dysfunction are governed not merely by discrete network states, but by constrained navigation along a continuous cost–efficiency spectrum, providing a unifying framework for interpreting brain-wide communication and its reconfiguration.
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Declaration of Competing Interests
The authors declare no competing interests to disclose.
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