Dynamics of emotion-transition networks link brain network variability and affective symptoms

Emotion dynamics are closely linked to psychological health. Although inertia and variability have been linked to affective symptoms, relatively few studies have examined how emotional states are structurally organized and transition from one state to another. Using ecological momentary assessment data from 210 participants, the present study constructed Markov chain models to characterize the dynamic structure of emotion-transition networks and their associations with affective symptoms, defined here as depressive and anxiety symptoms.

In a subsample of 44 participants with resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data, we further examined whether temporal variability within three core networks—the default mode network, salience network, and frontoparietal control network—was linked to emotion dynamics and affective symptoms. The results showed that depressive and anxiety symptoms exhibited highly similar association patterns. Both were associated with a reduced tendency to maintain or return to a low-negative-affect state and with lower overall connectivity within the negative-affect transition network.

Greater temporal variability in the salience network was also associated with a reduced tendency to maintain low negative affect. Mediation analyses identified significant indirect associations between salience network variability and both depressive and anxiety symptoms through this reduced stability of low negative affect. These findings indicate that individual differences in salience network variability are associated with the organization of daily emotional states and affective symptoms.

Overall, this study highlights the associations among brain network variability, affective symptoms, and emotional stability in everyday life. We are very grateful to the members of the research team for their hard work in organising the collection process and gathering the data. This research was supported by the General Project of Humanities and Social Sciences Research Fund of the Ministry of Education of China (23YJCZH113), the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (CSTB2023NSCQ-BHX0093), and the Chongqing Doctoral Researcher Scientific Research Innovation Project (CYB25090).

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. These authors jointly supervised this work: Jiang Qiu, Yu Li. Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, China Li Geng, Shuang Tang, Bijie Tie, Xueyang Wang, Yunhong Wang, Hui Jia, Jiangzhou Sun, Jiang Qiu & Yu Li Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing, China School of Health Management, Xihua University, Chengdu, China College of International Studies, Southwest University (SWU), Chongqing, China The authors declare no competing interests.

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