RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Node-Specific Heritability in the Mouse Connectome JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 701755 DO 10.1101/701755 A1 Nian Wang A1 Robert J Anderson A1 David G Ashbrook A1 Vivek Gopalakrishnan A1 Youngser Park A1 Carey E Priebe A1 Yi Qi A1 Joshua T Vogelstein A1 Robert W Williams A1 G Allan Johnson YR 2019 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/16/701755.abstract AB MRI provides an opportunity to link neuroanatomic phenotypes to genetic expression. Genome-wide associative studies in the ENIGMA consortium and the UK Biobank have demonstrated significant links between brain structure and specific genes. Similar studies in rodents are challenging because of the scale. We report whole brain diffusion connectomes of four strains of mice (C57BL/6J, DBA/2J, CAST/EiJ, and BTBR) at spatial resolution 20,000 times higher than the human connectome. We derived volumes and scalar diffusion metrics for 322 regions of the brain. Volume was the most heritable trait followed by FA, RD, and AD. These traits were heritable in > 60% of the regions when comparing all four strains. Many were also highly heritable when the BTBR was not included. Using a unique statistical approach to limit false discovery allowed us to identify a number of specific brain nodes in which connectivity was highly heritable.HIGHLIGHTSMicroscopic MRI/DTI connectomes were generated in 4 strains of mice (n=8/strain).Heritability of volume, and diffusion metrics was measured for 166 regions.Low dimensional scaling allowed robust comparison of connectome nodes.Volume, FA, AD, RD and connectome nodes are heritable in over 50% of the regions.