Prediction of individual season of birth using MRI

Abstract

Previous research suggests statistical associations between season of birth (SOB) with prevalence of neurobehavioral disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, personality traits, and suicidal behavior. These effects are thought to be mediated by seasonal differences in perinatal photoperiod, which was recently shown to imprint circadian clock neurons and behavior in rodents. However, it is unknown whether SOB is associated with any measurable differences in the normal human adult brain, and whether individual SOB can be deduced based on phenotype. Here I show that SOB predicts neuroanatomical differences in regional grey matter volume, and that MRI scans carry spatially distributed information allowing significantly above chance prediction of an individual’s SOB. Using an open source database of over 550 structural brain scans, Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM) analysis showed a significant SOB effect in left superior temporal gyrus (STG) in males (p=0.009, FWE whole-brain corrected), with greater grey matter volumes in fall and winter births. A cosinor analysis revealed a significant annual periodicity in left STG grey matter volume (Zero Amplitude Test: p<5×10-7), with a peak towards the end of December and a nadir towards the end of June, suggesting that perinatal photoperiod accounts for this SOB effect. Whole-brain VBM maps were used as input features to multivariate machine-learning based analyses to classify SOB. Significantly greater than chance prediction was achieved in females (overall accuracy 35%, p<0.001), but not in males (overall accuracy 26%, p=0.45). Pair-wise binary classification in females revealed the highest discrimination was obtained for winter vs. summer classification (peak area under the ROC curve=0.71, p<0.0005). Discriminating regions included fusiform and middle temporal gyrus, inferior and superior parietal lobe, cerebellum, and dorsolateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Results indicate SOB is detectable with MRI, imply SOB exerts effects on the developing human brain that persist through adulthood, and suggest neuroimaging may be a valuable intermediate phenotype in bridging the gap between SOB and personality and neurobehavioral disorders.

Childhood neglect predicts disorganization in schizophrenia through grey matter decrease in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

“…The DLPFC is a key region for high‐level cognitive skills such as executive functions or working memory . Besides, the literature has confirmed the major involvement of the DLPFC in the physiopathology of schizophrenia . Moreover, the expression of COMT, a vulnerability gene of schizophrenia, has been linked to DLPFC volume and function .…”

Seasonality and season of birth effect in the UK Biobank cohort

“…In studies using data from UK Biobank, birth weight, age of menarche, adulthood height and educational qualifications have been linked to birth season (Day, Forouhi, Ong, & Perry, 2015). In addition, it has been demonstrated using 550 brain scans that season of birth may influence brain structure (Pantazatos, 2014). With more than 20 000 brain images, the UK Biobank cohort may provide insight into this topic.…”

Mapping individual voxel-wise morphological connectivity using wavelet transform of voxel-based morphology

“…Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) is a neuroimaging tool that can probe local differences of brain anatomy and has been applied in statistical analysis [ 1 , 2 ] and data mining [ 3 – 5 ]. The brain is a complex network and contains high-order cortical information, although the local features of the brain morphology do not reflect the brain topology.…”