Genetic analysis of cortical thickness and fractional anisotropy of water diffusion in the brain

• Published in: Frontiers in neuroscience 2011-01, Vol.5, p.120-120
• Main Authors: Kochunov, Peter, Glahn, David C, Nichols, Thomas E, Winkler, Anderson M, Hong, Elliot L, Holcomb, Henry H, Stein, Jason L, Thompson, Paul M, Curran, Joanne E, Carless, Melanie A, Olvera, Rene L, Johnson, Matthew P, Cole, Shelley A, Kochunov, Valeria, Kent, Jack, Blangero, John
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ADAM10; Age; Anatomie (cytologie, histologie, embryologie...) & physiologie; Anatomy (cytology, histology, embryology...) & physiology; Anisotropy; Brain research; Cortex; cortical thickness; Gene expression; Gene polymorphism; Genetic analysis; genetic correlation; Genetics; Genomes; GWAS; Hispanic Americans; imaging genetics; Life sciences; Localization; Neurodegeneration; Neuroscience; Neurosciences & behavior; Neurosciences & comportement; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; Phenotypes; Psychiatry; QTL; Quantitative trait loci; RORA; Sciences du vivant; Sciences sociales & comportementales, psychologie; Single-nucleotide polymorphism; Social & behavioral sciences, psychology; Substantia alba; Substantia grisea; Values; WM integrity
• ISSN: 1662-4548; 1662-453X; 1662-453X; 1662-4548
• DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2011.00120

The thickness of the brain's cortical gray matter (GM) and the fractional anisotropy (FA) of the cerebral white matter (WM) each follow an inverted U-shape trajectory with age. The two measures are positively correlated and may be modulated by common biological mechanisms. We employed four types of genetic analyses to localize individual genes acting pleiotropically upon these phenotypes. Whole-brain and regional GM thickness and FA values were measured from high-resolution anatomical and diffusion tensor MR images collected from 712, Mexican American participants (438 females, age = 47.9 ± 13.2 years) recruited from 73 (9.7 ± 9.3 individuals/family) large families. The significance of the correlation between two traits was estimated using a bivariate genetic correlation analysis. Localization of chromosomal regions that jointly influenced both traits was performed using whole-genome quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis. Gene localization was performed using SNP genotyping on Illumina 1M chip and correlation with leukocyte-based gene-expression analyses. The gene-expressions were measured using the Illumina BeadChip. These data were available for 371 subjects. Significant genetic correlation was observed among GM thickness and FA values. Significant logarithm of odds (LOD ≥ 3.0) QTLs were localized within chromosome 15q22-23. More detailed localization reported no significant association (p