Imaging Genomics and ENIGMA

We review efforts worldwide to discover differences in genomic and medical imaging data that offer new insights into psychiatric and neurological illnesses in human populations. The vast cost to society of mental illness from depression, posttraumatic stress, the dementias, and disorders of childhood development and old age have led many geneticists to seek treatable causal mechanisms that affect our risk and prognosis in these disorders. Imaging data can help us discover and understand both genetic and nongenetic risk factors for brain diseases, revealing what brain systems they affect. However, the vast diversity of mental illness and the complexity of the factors that affect it require large-scale studies to avoid making premature conclusions that generalize poorly individuals and new populations. We show how Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA), a worldwide alliance studying 12 brain diseases in 35 countries, has merged neuroimaging and genetic data from over 30,000 people to yield new insights into a variety of brain diseases and conditions, and the factors that affect them.