It has also been proposed that this abnormal hyper-connectivity is a compensatory mechanism for damaged areas or reduced or altered connectivity (Coullaut-Valera et al., 2014; Correas et al., 2015). Functional MRI studies (Squeglia et al., 2011; Xiao et al., 2013) revealed increased brain activity during cognitive tasks in BD adolescents and college students than in non-BD participants, despite similar cognitive performance levels. Thus, the increase in theta connectivity observed in the BD group may be a compensatory mechanism facilitating behavioral performance (Correas et al., 2016).
