TY - JOUR
T1 - Cortical thickness or grey matter volume? The importance of selecting the phenotype for imaging genetics studies
AU - Winkler, Anderson M.
AU - Kochunov, Peter
AU - Blangero, John
AU - Almasy, Laura
AU - Zilles, Karl
AU - Fox, Peter T.
AU - Duggirala, Ravindranath
AU - Glahn, David C.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge Jack W. Kent Jr. for his invaluable support. The authors thank the Athinoula Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the FMRIB Imaging Analysis Group for providing software used for the analyses. Financial support for this study was provided by NIMH grants MH0708143 (PI: D. C. Glahn), MH078111 (PI: J. Blangero) and MH083824 (PI: D. C. Glahn) and by the NIBIB grant EB006395 (P. Kochunov). SOLAR is supported by NIMH grant MH59490 (J. Blangero). None of the authors have financial interests to disclose.
PY - 2010/11
Y1 - 2010/11
N2 - Choosing the appropriate neuroimaging phenotype is critical to successfully identify genes that influence brain structure or function. While neuroimaging methods provide numerous potential phenotypes, their role for imaging genetics studies is unclear. Here we examine the relationship between brain volume, grey matter volume, cortical thickness and surface area, from a genetic standpoint. Four hundred and eighty-six individuals from randomly ascertained extended pedigrees with high-quality T1-weighted neuroanatomic MRI images participated in the study. Surface-based and voxel-based representations of brain structure were derived, using automated methods, and these measurements were analysed using a variance-components method to identify the heritability of these traits and their genetic correlations. All neuroanatomic traits were significantly influenced by genetic factors. Cortical thickness and surface area measurements were found to be genetically and phenotypically independent. While both thickness and area influenced volume measurements of cortical grey matter, volume was more closely related to surface area than cortical thickness. This trend was observed for both the volume-based and surface-based techniques. The results suggest that surface area and cortical thickness measurements should be considered separately and preferred over gray matter volumes for imaging genetic studies.
AB - Choosing the appropriate neuroimaging phenotype is critical to successfully identify genes that influence brain structure or function. While neuroimaging methods provide numerous potential phenotypes, their role for imaging genetics studies is unclear. Here we examine the relationship between brain volume, grey matter volume, cortical thickness and surface area, from a genetic standpoint. Four hundred and eighty-six individuals from randomly ascertained extended pedigrees with high-quality T1-weighted neuroanatomic MRI images participated in the study. Surface-based and voxel-based representations of brain structure were derived, using automated methods, and these measurements were analysed using a variance-components method to identify the heritability of these traits and their genetic correlations. All neuroanatomic traits were significantly influenced by genetic factors. Cortical thickness and surface area measurements were found to be genetically and phenotypically independent. While both thickness and area influenced volume measurements of cortical grey matter, volume was more closely related to surface area than cortical thickness. This trend was observed for both the volume-based and surface-based techniques. The results suggest that surface area and cortical thickness measurements should be considered separately and preferred over gray matter volumes for imaging genetic studies.
KW - Brain cortical thickness
KW - Brain surface area
KW - Heritability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77956230065&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.12.028
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.12.028
M3 - Article
C2 - 20006715
AN - SCOPUS:77956230065
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 53
SP - 1135
EP - 1146
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
IS - 3
ER -