Systems psychopharmacology: A network approach to developing novel therapies

Figure 2 Some characteristics of protein-protein interaction networks. Hubs are important nodes (proteins) due to their numerous connections (dashed lines = connections in 3^rd dimension). Directly inserted into a biochemical pathway, they can also represent a bottleneck (Hub-bottleneck). Otherwise, they are Hub-non-bottlenecks. Nonhub-bottlenecks are nodes inserted in biochemical pathways, but lacking numerous connections. Evidently, disturbances of any of these three important types of nodes result in serious consequences. Therefore, although associations of chronic mental illness with these types of nodes may exist, more unwanted side effects than benefits would ensue from targeting these types of nodes by pharmacotherapy.