# Connectome-based fingerprinting of clinical and functional outcomes in veterans

> **NIH VA I21** · VA BOSTON HEALTH CARE SYSTEM · 2020 · —

## Abstract

It is increasingly recognized that returning Veterans and Service Members of Operation Enduring
Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn (OEF/OIF/OND) suffer from co-occurring
psychological and physical conditions that impede reintegration and make efficient and effective treatment
planning difficult, if not impossible. Though it is clear that several diagnoses, particularly mTBI, PTSD, and
depression are prevalent in trauma-exposed veterans, we have recently shown that specific patterns of co-
occurrence of these disorders are key to understanding their functional consequences. The proposed research
will investigate whether these patterns of clinical co-occurrence hold the key to discovering their
neurobiological consequences. Specifically, this proposal will develop an innovative set of
neuroimaging methods to determine whether these co-occurring disorders have specific neural
fingerprints. Identifying such fingerprints would allow us to make diagnostic inferences about individual
Veterans, and could help predict treatment outcomes and develop neurobiologically-informed interventions.
To do this, the proposed studies will take advantage of existing data and will develop cutting-edge machine
learning techniques and analytic procedures. Once developed, the proposed studies will poise the PI for
multiple competitive Merit applications to apply these novel neural fingerprinting techniques in translational
research.
DESIGN AND METHODS: The proposed studies use a general set of techniques at the forefront of an
exciting new era for brain imaging- MRI-based “fingerprinting”, or measuring and modeling the reproducible
and yet substantial individual variation in the fMRI-based connectome (functional connectivity). This
approach has the potential to translate population-based studies to investigations of the individual patient and
precision medicine approaches. In Veterans, a recent study by Georgopoulos (co-I) and colleagues was able to
successfully diagnose PTSD in a small, homogenous sample without comorbidities, using fMRI-based neural
fingerprinting. The goal of the proposed studies is to replicate and optimize this work, as well as determine the
feasibility of extracting unique and reliable neural fingerprints for veterans with complex co-occurring
conditions (comorbid PTSD, mTBI, and depression).
OBJECTIVES. Aim 1: Determine the feasibility of resting fMRI connectivity to predict PTSD in a
polymorbid sample. Hypothesis: MRI-based fingerprinting will successfully diagnose PTSD above chance
demonstrating the feasibility and validity of this fingerprinting analysis. However, diagnostic accuracy will be
substantially reduced in this polymorbid sample thus demonstrating the need for future work to more finely
characterize neural fingerprints associated with deployment trauma.
Aim 2: Optimize this neural fingerprinting of PTSD across six different brain parcellation methods for
defining the fMRI connectome.
Aim 3: Determine the preliminary abi...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10174847
- **Project number:** 5I21RX002737-03
- **Recipient organization:** VA BOSTON HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
- **Principal Investigator:** Michael Esterman
- **Activity code:** I21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-07-01 → 2020-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10174847

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10174847, Connectome-based fingerprinting of clinical and functional outcomes in veterans (5I21RX002737-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10174847. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*