PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Nian Wang
AU  - Robert J Anderson
AU  - David G Ashbrook
AU  - Vivek Gopalakrishnan
AU  - Youngser Park
AU  - Carey E Priebe
AU  - Yi Qi
AU  - Joshua T Vogelstein
AU  - Robert W Williams
AU  - G Allan Johnson
TI  - Heritability of the Mouse Brain Connectome
AID  - 10.1101/701755
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 701755
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/14/701755.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/14/701755.full
AB  - Genome-wide association studies have demonstrated significant links between human brain structure and common DNA variants. Similar studies with rodents have been challenging because of smaller brain volumes. Using high field MRI (9.4T) and compressed sensing, we have achieved microscopic resolution and sufficiently high throughput for rodent population studies. We generated whole brain structural MRI and diffusion connectomes for four diverse isogenic lines of mice (C57BL/6J, DBA/2J, CAST/EiJ, and BTBR) at spatial resolution 20,000 times higher than human connectomes. We derived volumes, scalar diffusion metrics, and estimates of residual technical error for 166 regions in each hemisphere and connectivity between the regions. Volumes of discrete brain regions had the highest mean heritability (0.71 ± 0.23 SD, n = 332), followed by fractional anisotropy (0.54 ± 0.26), radial diffusivity (0.34 ± 0.022), and axial diffusivity (0.28 ± 0.19). Connection profiles were statistically different in 280 of 322 nodes across all four strains. Nearly 150 of the connection profiles were statistically different between the C57BL/6J, DBA/2J, and CAST/EiJ lines.