Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood

Abstract

Prosocial behavior and empathy are important aspects of developing social relations in childhood. Prior studies showed protracted structural development of social brain regions associated with prosocial behavior. However, it remains unknown how structure of the social brain is influenced by genetic or environmental factors, and whether overlapping heritability factors explain covariance in structure of the social brain and behavior. The current study examined this hypothesis in a twin sample (aged 7–9-year; N = 512). Bilateral measures of surface area and cortical thickness of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and precuneus were analyzed. Results showed genetic contributions to surface area and cortical thickness for all brain regions. We found additional shared environmental influences for TPJ, suggesting that this region might be relatively more sensitive to social experiences. Genetic factors also influenced parent-reported prosocial behavior (A = 45%) and empathy (A = 59%). We provided initial evidence that the precuneus shares genetically determined variance with empathy, suggesting a possible small genetic overlap (9%) in brain structure and empathy. These findings show that structure of the social brain and empathy are driven by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, with some factors overlapping for brain structure and behavior.

Beyond the average brain: individual differences in social brain development are associated with friendship quality

“…, 2019 ). The relatively similar development of the precuneus across persons is consistent with recent findings from a twin study that showed that the structure of the precuneus is particularly genetically driven and less sensitive to environmental influences ( van der Meulen et al. , 2020 ).…”

“…For three of our four social brain regions of interest (ROIs: mPFC, TPJ and pSTS), we used the same templates as used and described in full detail by Mills et al. (2014) and van der Meulen et al. (2020) .…”

“…We averaged all ROIs across hemispheres. The visualization of these ROIs is presented in prior work by van der Meulen et al. (2020) .…”

“…, 2019 ). In contrast, other trajectories may show larger between-individual differences in change rates that may be related to individual differences in the environment as well ( van der Meulen et al. , 2020 ).…”

Neural and behavioral signatures of social evaluation and adaptation in childhood and adolescence: The Leiden consortium on individual development (L-CID)

“…Moreover, heritability of white matter tracks was observed in twin studies including neonates, 1-year-olds, and 2-year-olds, but no evidence for heritability of white matter change between the age of 1 and 2 years ( Lee et al, 2019 ). In older children and adolescents, heritability estimates are much higher ( van Soelen et al, 2012 ) but genetic influence differs between regions in the brain, with more pronounced environmental influences in the social brain network than in visual and motor cortex ( Van der Meulen et al, 2020 ). Understanding the genetic and/or environmental contributions and the changes in their impact across development may reveal potential windows of sensitivity to the environment during development.…”