Genes 2 Brains 2 Mind 2 Me

The brain is a wonderfully weird and strange organ to behold.  Its twists and folds, magnificent, in and of themselves, are even moreso when we contemplate that the very emotional experience of such beauty is carried out within the very folds.  Now consider the possibility of integrating these beauteous structure/function relationships with human history – via the human genome – and ask yourself if this seems like fun.  If so, check out the recent paper, “Genetic and environmental influences on the size of specific brain regions in midlife: The VETSA MRI study” [doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.09.043].

Here the research team – members of the Biomedical Informatics research Network – have carried out the largest and most comprehensive known twin study of brain structure.  By performing structural brain imaging on 404 male twin pairs (important to note here that the field still awaits a comparable female study), the team examined the differences in identical (MZ) vs. fraternal (DZ) pair correlations of the structure of some 96 different brain regions.  The authors now provide an updated structural brain map showing what structures are more or less influenced by genes vs. environment. Some of the highlights from the paper are that genes accounted for about 70% of overall brain volume, while in the cortex, genes accounted for only about 45% of cortical thickness.  Much of the environmental effects were found to be non-shared, suggesting, as expected, that individual experience can have strong effects on brain structure.  The left and right putamen showed the highest additive genetic influence, while the cingulate and temporal cortices showed rather low additive genetic influences (below 50%).

If you would like to play around with a free brain structure visualization tool, check out Slicer 3D, which can be obtained from the BIRN homepage or directly here.  I had fun this morning digitally slicing and dicing grey matter from ventricles and blood vessels.