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Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Size of Specific Brain Regions in Midlife: the VETSA MRI Study
Institution:
 1Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive (MC 0738), La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. wkremen@ucsd.edu
2Departments of Psychiatry and Human Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
3Department of Radiology, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
4Department of Psychology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
5Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
6Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC and Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA
7Department of Radiology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
Publisher:
 Elsevier Science
Publication Date:
 Jan-2010
Journal:
 Neuroimage
Volume Number:
 49
Issue Number:
 2
Pages:
 1213-1223
Citation:
 Neuroimage. 2010 Jan 15;49(2):1213-23. Erratum in: Neuroimage. 2010 Feb 15;49(4):3499-3502.
PubMed ID:
 19786105
Keywords:
 Heritability, Twins, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Brain structure, Cortical thickness
Appears in Collections:
NA-MIC
Sponsors:
 AG018384 (AG) funded by NIA NIH HHS
AG018386 (AG) funded by NIA NIH HHS
AG022381 (AG) funded by NIA NIH HHS
AG022982 (AG) funded by NIA NIH HHS
BIRN002 () funded by PHS HHS
P41 RR14075 (RR) funded by NCRR NIH HHS
R01 NS052585-01 (NS) funded by NINDS NIH HHS
R01 EB006758 (EB) funded by NIBIB NIH HHS
U54 EB005149 (EB) funded by NIBIB NIH HHS
Generated Citation:
 Kremen W.S., Prom-Wormley E., Panizzon M.S., Eyler L.T., Fischl B., Neale M.C., Franz C.E., Lyons M.J., Pacheco J., Perry M.E., Stevens A., Schmitt J.E., Grant M.D., Seidman L.J., Thermenos H.W., Tsuang M.T., Eisen S.A., Dale A.M., Fennema-Notestine C. Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Size of Specific Brain Regions in Midlife: the VETSA MRI Study. Neuroimage. 2010 Jan 15;49(2):1213-23. Erratum in: Neuroimage. 2010 Feb 15;49(4):3499-3502. PMID: 19786105.
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The impact of genetic and environmental factors on human brain structure is of great importance for understanding normative cognitive and brain aging as well as neuropsychiatric disorders. However, most studies of genetic and environmental influences on human brain structure have either focused on global measures or have had samples that were too small for reliable estimates. Using the classical twin design, we assessed genetic, shared environmental, and individual-specific environmental influences on individual differences in the size of 96 brain regions of interest (ROIs). Participants were 474 middle-aged male twins (202 pairs; 70 unpaired) in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA). They were 51-59 years old, and were similar to U.S. men in their age range in terms of sociodemographic and health characteristics. We measured thickness of cortical ROIs and volume of other ROIs. On average, genetic influences accounted for approximately 70% of the variance in the volume of global, subcortical, and ventricular ROIs and approximately 45% of the variance in the thickness of cortical ROIs. There was greater variability in the heritability of cortical ROIs (0.00-0.75) as compared with subcortical and ventricular ROIs (0.48-0.85). The results did not indicate lateralized heritability differences or greater genetic influences on the size of regions underlying higher cognitive functions. The findings provide key information for imaging genetic studies and other studies of brain phenotypes and endophenotypes. Longitudinal analysis will be needed to determine whether the degree of genetic and environmental influences changes for different ROIs from midlife to later life.

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