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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive Heritability of Working Memory Brain Activation
BibTeX
@MISC{_behavioral/systems/cognitiveheritability,
author = {},
title = {Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive Heritability of Working Memory Brain Activation},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
Although key to understanding individual variation in task-related brain activation, the genetic contribution to these individual differ-ences remains largely unknown.Herewe report voxel-by-voxel geneticmodel fitting in a large sample of 319healthy, young adult, human identical and fraternal twins (mean SD age, 23.6 1.8 years) who performed an n-back working memory task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at a highmagnetic field (4 tesla). Patterns of task-related brain response (BOLD signal difference of 2-backminus 0-back)were significantly heritable, with the highest estimates (40–65%) in the inferior,middle, and superior frontal gyri, left supplementary motor area, precentral and postcentral gyri, middle cingulate cortex, superior medial gyrus, angular gyrus, superior parietal lobule, including precuneus, and superior occipital gyri. Furthermore, high test-retest reliability for a subsample of 40 twins indicates that nongenetic variance in the fMRI brain response is largely due to unique environmental influences rather than measure-ment error. Individual variations in activation of the workingmemory network are therefore significantly influenced by genetic factors. By establishing the heritability of cognitive brain function in a large sample that affords good statistical power, and using voxel-by-voxel analyses, this study provides the necessary evidence for task-related brain activation to be considered as an endophenotype for psychi-atric or neurological disorders, and represents a substantial new contribution to the field of neuroimaging genetics. These genetic brain maps should facilitate discovery of gene variants influencing cognitive brain function through genome-wide association studies, poten-tially opening up new avenues in the treatment of brain disorders.
Keyphrases
behavioral system cognitive heritability working memory brain activation cognitive brain function large sample individual variation task-related brain activation young adult gene variant unique environmental influence herewe report voxel-by-voxel geneticmodel fitting n-back working memory task superior medial gyrus genetic contribution functional magnetic resonance imaging 2-backminus 0-back genome-wide association study highmagnetic field superior occipital gyrus new avenue superior frontal gyrus brain disorder fmri brain response angular gyrus postcentral gyrus superior parietal lobule genetic factor voxel-by-voxel analysis neurological disorder mean sd age nongenetic variance middle cingulate cortex genetic brain map task-related brain response measure-ment error individual differ-ences workingmemory network substantial new contribution affords good statistical power fraternal twin high test-retest reliability bold signal difference supplementary motor area necessary evidence
