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Multivariate analysis reveals shared genetic architecture of brain morphology and human behavior.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Slob, Eric A W 
Koellinger, Philipp D 

Abstract

Human variation in brain morphology and behavior are related and highly heritable. Yet, it is largely unknown to what extent specific features of brain morphology and behavior are genetically related. Here, we introduce a computationally efficient approach for multivariate genomic-relatedness-based restricted maximum likelihood (MGREML) to estimate the genetic correlation between a large number of phenotypes simultaneously. Using individual-level data (N = 20,190) from the UK Biobank, we provide estimates of the heritability of gray-matter volume in 74 regions of interest (ROIs) in the brain and we map genetic correlations between these ROIs and health-relevant behavioral outcomes, including intelligence. We find four genetically distinct clusters in the brain that are aligned with standard anatomical subdivision in neuroscience. Behavioral traits have distinct genetic correlations with brain morphology which suggests trait-specific relevance of ROIs. These empirical results illustrate how MGREML can be used to estimate internally consistent and high-dimensional genetic correlation matrices in large datasets.

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Keywords

Journal Title

Communications biology

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2399-3642

Volume Title

4

Publisher

Sponsorship
UW | Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison (VCRGE, UW) (N/A)
Dutch Research Council (NWO) (EINF-403)
European Research Council (647648, 647648 EdGe, 946647, 946647 GEPSI)