English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Common genetic variants influence human subcortical brain structures

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons80505

Sämann,  Philipp G.
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons80367

Hoehn,  David
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons80596

Wolf,  Christiane
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons80295

Czisch,  Michael
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons80372

Holsboer,  Florian
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons80450

Müller-Myhsok,  Bertram
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Max Planck Society;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Hibar, D. P., Stein, J. L., Renteria, M. E., Arias-Vasquez, A., Desrivieres, S., Jahanshad, N., et al. (2015). Common genetic variants influence human subcortical brain structures. NATURE, 520(7546), 224-229. doi:10.1038/nature14101.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0028-A06A-7
Abstract
The highly complex structure of the human brain is strongly shaped by genetic influences(1). Subcortical brain regions form circuits with cortical areas to coordinate movement(2), learning, memory(3) and motivation(4), and altered circuits can lead to abnormal behaviour and disease(5). To investigate how common genetic variants affect the structure of these brain regions, here we conduct genome-wide association studies of the volumes of seven subcortical regions and the intracranial volume derived from magnetic resonance images of 30,717 individuals from 50 cohorts. We identify five novel genetic variants influencing the volumes of the putamen and caudate nucleus. We also find stronger evidence for three loci with previously established influences on hippocampal volume(5) and intracranial volume(6). These variants show specific volumetric effects on brain structures rather than global effects across structures. The strongest effects were found for the putamen, where a novel intergenic locus with replicable influence on volume (rs945270; P = 1.08 X 10(-33); 0.52% variance explained) showed evidence of altering the expression of the KTN1 gene in both brain and blood tissue. Variants influencing putamen volume clustered near developmental genes that regulate apoptosis, axon guidance and vesicle transport. Identification of these genetic variants provides insight into the causes of variability in human brain development, and may help to determine mechanisms of neuropsychiatric dysfunction.