Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
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PMID
22856370
TITLE
Genetic and environmental influences on neuroimaging phenotypes: a meta-analytical perspective on twin imaging studies.
ABSTRACT
Because brain structure and function are affected in neurological and psychiatric disorders, it is important to disentangle the sources of variation in these phenotypes. Over the past 15 years, twin studies have found evidence for both genetic and environmental influences on neuroimaging phenotypes, but considerable variation across studies makes it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the relative magnitude of these influences. Here we performed the first meta-analysis of structural MRI data from 48 studies on >1,250 twin pairs, and diffusion tensor imaging data from 10 studies on 444 twin pairs. The proportion of total variance accounted for by genes (A), shared environment (C), and unshared environment (E), was calculated by averaging A, C, and E estimates across studies from independent twin cohorts and weighting by sample size. The results indicated that additive genetic estimates were significantly different from zero for all meta-analyzed phenotypes, with the exception of fractional anisotropy (FA) of the callosal splenium, and cortical thickness (CT) of the uncus, left parahippocampal gyrus, and insula. For many phenotypes there was also a significant influence of C. We now have good estimates of heritability for many regional and lobar CT measures, in addition to the global volumes. Confidence intervals are wide and number of individuals small for many of the other phenotypes. In conclusion, while our meta-analysis shows that imaging measures are strongly influenced by genes, and that novel phenotypes such as CT measures, FA measures, and brain activation measures look especially promising, replication across independent samples and demographic groups is necessary.
DATE PUBLISHED
2012 Jun
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
entrez 2012/08/04 06:00
pubmed 2012/08/04 06:00
medline 2012/09/26 06:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Blokland GA Blokland Gabriƫlla A M GA Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. gabriella.blokland@qimr.edu.au
de Zubicaray GI de Zubicaray Greig I GI
McMahon KL McMahon Katie L KL
Wright MJ Wright Margaret J MJ
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 15
ISSUE: 3
TITLE: Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies
ISOABBREVIATION: Twin Res Hum Genet
YEAR: 2012
MONTH: Jun
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN:
ISSNTYPE:
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Twin Res Hum Genet
COUNTRY: England
ISSNLINKING: 1832-4274
NLMUNIQUEID: 101244624
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
Meta-Analysis
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
R01 HD050735 NICHD NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Brain physiology
Brain Mapping physiology
Child physiology
Child, Preschool physiology
Diffusion Tensor Imaging physiology
Gene-Environment Interaction physiology
Humans physiology
Magnetic Resonance Imaging physiology
Middle Aged physiology
Neuroimaging physiology
Organ Size genetics
Phenotype genetics
Quantitative Trait, Heritable genetics
Tomography, X-Ray Computed genetics
Twins genetics
Young Adult genetics
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's