The obese brain as a heritable phenotype: a combined morphometry and twin study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Body weight and adiposity are heritable traits. To date, it remains unknown whether obesity-associated brain structural alterations are under a similar level of genetic control.

Methods

For this study, we utilized magnetic resonance imaging data from the Human Connectome Project. Voxel-based morphometry was used to investigate associations between body mass index (BMI) and regional gray matter volume (GMV) in a sample of 875 young adults with a wide BMI range (386 males/489 females; age 28.8±3.7 years; BMI 26.6±5.3 kg m^-2) that included 86 pairs of monozygotic twins and 82 pairs of dizygotic twins. Twin data were analyzed by applying the additive genetic, common environmental and residual effects model to determine heritability of brain regions that wer

SUBMITTER: Weise CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5402354 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature