Pattern of frustration formation in the functional brain network

The brain is a frustrated system that contains conflictual link arrangements named frustration. The frustration as a source of disorder prevents the system from settling into low-energy states and provides flexibility for brain network organization. In this research, we tried to identify the pattern of frustration formation in the brain at the levels of region, connection, canonical network, and hemisphere. We found that frustration formation has no uniform pattern. Some subcortical elements have an active role in frustration formation, despite low contributions from many cortical elements. Frustrating connections are mostly between-network connections, and triadic frustrations are mainly formed between three regions from three distinct canonical networks. We did not find any significant differences between brain hemispheres or any robust differences between the frustration formation patterns of various life-span stages. Our results may be interesting for those who study the organization of brain links and promising for those who want to manipulate brain networks. Author Summary Brain network analysis approaches commonly ignore the signs of links. Frustration is a fascinating phenomenon referring to the conflictual arrangements of signed links. As a source of instability, it can give valuable information on altering components of a network. It can specify which brain network elements intend to drive brain network alterations. Accordingly, we tried to identify the pattern of frustration formation in the brain network, which brain network elements are more frustrated and which ones are less frustrated. We provided some maps for frustration formation in the levels of region, connection, canonical network, and hemisphere. The introduced concept of frustration and our results may be interesting for brain network scientists.