Technical Program

Paper Detail

Paper: PS-1A.36
Session: Poster Session 1A
Location: Symphony/Overture
Session Time: Thursday, September 6, 16:30 - 18:30
Presentation Time:Thursday, September 6, 16:30 - 18:30
Presentation: Poster
Publication: 2018 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, 5-8 September 2018, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Paper Title: Brain connectivity is modularly represented in the genome
Manuscript:  Click here to view manuscript
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32470/CCN.2018.1202-0
Authors: Maxwell Bertolero, Graham Baum, Theodore Satterthwaite, Danielle Bassett, University of Pennsylvania, United States
Abstract: The network organization of human brain functional connectivity is strikingly similar to that of inter-regional gene coexpression. Yet, whether gene coexpression explains functional connectivity with an accuracy that is equivalent across the cortex, or whether different sets of genes explain distinct aspects of functional connectivity remains unknown. Furthermore, it is unclear how the relationship between gene coexpression and brain connectivity might change over development, relate to heritability, and track behavior. Here, we leverage several large multimodal data sets to demonstrate that different sets of genes statistically account for different aspects of brain network architecture. Critically, gene coexpression is more strongly related to functional connectivity than to structural connectivity. Brain regions whose connections are well fit by gene coexpression also tend to have connections whose strengths are commonly shared across humans, co-vary with behavior, and display stereotyped development over adolescence. In contrast, brain regions whose connections are not well fit by gene coexpression tend to connect diverse functional network modules and be strongly heritable. Our results lend support to the notion that functional connectivity is modularly represented in the genome and mediates between genotypes and cognitive phenotypes.