Correlations among all the top variables of FC, neuropsychological performance and impulsivity domains are shown in Figure 7. It is interesting to find that there were multi-level associations among impulsivity, neurocognition, and neural connectivity, and their intricate and consistent relationship with AUD. There were specific correlations across (i) increased impulsivity and hyperconnectivity, (ii) poor neuropsychological performance and hyperconnectivity, and (iii) increased impulsivity and poor memory performance. Furthermore, AUD individuals manifested relatively higher impulsivity and lower memory performance, in addition to aberrant neural connectivity (predominant hyperconnectivity) which were consistent with other behavioral/cognitive measures. Specifically, hyperconnectivity in three of the significant DMN connections in the beta band, the frequency which is frequently associated with externalizing disorders [155,156], were associated with increased impulsivity scores. These findings add support to the view that alcoholism can be considered as a disinhibitory disorder [109,110,111]. Although previous studies have separately shown that AUD was associated with altered rs-fMRI FC [3,161], poor neuropsychological performance [64,150], and heightened impulsivity [65,120], no previous FC studies have examined all three domains together as done in the current study. However, similar to
