Size of the human corpus callosum is genetically determined: an MRI study in mono and dizygotic twins

Scamvougeras, Anton

doi:10.1016/s0304394002013332

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Heritability of individual callosal subdivisions varied from .29 ( SD = .14) for the splenium to .62 ( SD = .17) for the medial midbody, suggesting callosal subdivisions may differ in the degree of genetic contribution to the individual variation, but the large standard errors we obtained suggest that in this dataset the heritabilities are not statistically different. Overall, the estimates of heritability in baboons were about half of those reported in humans (Pfefferbaum et al, 2000; Scamvougeras et al, 2003). This discrepancy can potentially be explained by the methodological differences, since the human studies did not correct for inter-subject differences in brain volume.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

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Genetic Contributions to the Midsagittal Area of the Corpus Callosum

et al. 2012

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The degree to which genes and environment determine variations in brain structure and function is fundamentally important to understanding normal and disease-related patterns of neural organization and activity. We studied genetic contributions to the midsagittal area of the corpus callosum (CC) in pedigreed baboons (68 males/112 females) to replicate findings of high genetic contribution to area of the CC, reported in humans, and to determine if the heritability of the CC midsaggital area in adults was modulated by fetal development rate. Measurements of callosal area were obtained from high-resolution MRI scans. Heritability was estimated from pedigree based maximum likelihood estimation of genetic and non-genetic variance components as implemented in SOLAR. Our analyses revealed significant heritability for the total area of the CC and all of its subdivisions, with h2 = 0.46 for the total CC and h2 = .54, .37, .62, .56, and 0.29 for genu, anterior midbody, medial midbody, posterior midbody and splenium, respectively. Genetic correlation analysis demonstrated that the individual subdivisions shared between 41% and 98% of genetic variability. Combined with previous research reporting high heritability of other brain structures in baboons, these results reveal a consistent pattern of high heritability for brain morphometric measures in baboons.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Using MRI, human twin studies have suggested a high heritability of the midsagittal CC area (Scamvougeras et al, 2003). Analyses in a small number of mono- ( N = 10) and dizygotic ( N = 7) twin pairs estimated heritability at 94.4% for the size of the CC.…”

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confidence: 99%

Genetic Contributions to the Midsagittal Area of the Corpus Callosum

et al. 2012

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“…Imaging studies of adult twins have found genetic factors to account for 66-90% of total cerebral volume (Baare et al, 2001;Bartley, Jones, & Weinberger, 1997;Carmelli et al, 1998;Pfefferbaum, Sullivan, Swan, & Carmelli, 2000;Wright, Sham, Murray, Weinberger, & Bullmore, 2002) and similarly high heritabilities are reported for individual gray and white matter volumes (Baare et al, 2001;Posthuma et al, 2003), as well as mid-sagittal corpus callosum area (Pfefferbaum et al, 2000;Scamvougeras, Kigar, Jones, Weinberger, & Witelson, 2003). A single pediatric study of 34 MZ and 32 DZ pairs (some with and some without reading dis-ability) reported similar heritability of brain morphometric measures (Pennington et al, 2000).…”

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confidence: 89%

A pediatric twin study of brain morphometry

Wallace

Schmitt

Lenroot

et al. 2006

Child Psychology Psychiatry

147

148

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“…Of these substructures, the lateral ventricles, corpus callosum, and the hippocampus are by far the most well studied. There is extremely strong evidence that the variance in the area of the corpus callosum is dominated by genetic factors (Oppenheim et al, 1989;Pfefferbaum et al, 2000;Scamvougeras et al, 2003;Sullivan et al, 2001). In contrast, heritability estimates for both the hippocampus (Baaré et al, 2001b;Narr et al, 2002;Rijsdijk et al, 2005;Sullivan et al, 2001;Van Erp et al, 2004;Van Haren et al, 2004;Wright et al, 2002) and lateral ventricles (Baaré et al, 2001a;Baaré et al, 2001b;Pfefferbaum et al, 2000;Reveley et al, 1984;Reveley et al, 1982;Rijsdijk et al, 2005;Wright et al, 2002) are generally lower, but with a great deal of variability from study to study.…”

Section: Heritability Of Volumetric Phenotypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Twin and Family Studies on Neuroanatomic Phenotypes and Typical Neurodevelopment

Schmitt¹,

Eyler

Giedd

et al. 2007

Twin Res Hum Genet

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This article reviews the extant twin studies employing magnetic resonance imaging data (MRI), with an emphasis on studies of populationbased samples. There have been approximately 75 twin reports using MRI, with somewhat under half focusing on typical brain structure. Of these, most are samples of adults. For large brain regions such as lobar volumes, the heritabilities of large brain volumes are consistently high, with genetic factors accounting for at least half of the phenotypic variance. The role of genetics in generating individual differences in the volumes of small brain regions is less clear, mostly due to a dearth of information, but rarely because of disagreement between studies. Multivariate analyses show strong genetic relationships between brain regions. Cortical regions involved in language, executive function, and emotional regulation appear to be more heritable than other areas. Studies of brain shape also show significant, albeit lower, genetic effects on population variance. Finally, there is evidence of significant genetically mediated relationships between intelligence and brain structure. At present, the majority of twin imaging studies are limited by sample sizes small by the standards of behavioral genetics; nevertheless the literature at present represents a pioneering effort in the pursuit of answers to many challenging neurobiological questions.

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Size of the human corpus callosum is genetically determined: an MRI study in mono and dizygotic twins

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Genetic Contributions to the Midsagittal Area of the Corpus Callosum

Genetic Contributions to the Midsagittal Area of the Corpus Callosum

A pediatric twin study of brain morphometry

Review of Twin and Family Studies on Neuroanatomic Phenotypes and Typical Neurodevelopment

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