Large-scale brainstem neuroimaging and genetic analyses provide new insights into the neuronal mechanisms of hypertension.

ABSTRACT: While brainstem regions are central regulators of blood pressure, the neuronal mechanisms underlying their role in hypertension remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated the structural and genetic relationships between global and regional brainstem volumes and blood pressure. We used magnetic resonance imaging data from n = 32,666 UK Biobank participants, and assessed the association of volumes of the whole brainstem and its main regions with blood pressure. We applied powerful statistical genetic tools, including bivariate causal mixture modeling (MiXeR) and conjunctional false discovery rate (conjFDR), to non-overlapping genome-wide association studies of brainstem volumes (n = 27,034) and blood pressure (n = 321,843) in the UK Biobank cohort. We observed negative associations betw

SUBMITTER: Gurholt TP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11731578 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature