de Zubicaray Greig I, Chiang Ming-Chang, McMahon Katie L, Shattuck David W, Toga Arthur W, Martin Nicholas G, Wright Margaret J, Thompson Paul M
Centre for Magnetic Resonance, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2008 Dec 1;2(4):258-263. doi: 10.1007/s11682-008-9029-0.
As research encompassing neuroimaging and genetics gains momentum, extraordinary information will be uncovered on the genetic architecture of the human brain. However, there are significant challenges to be addressed first. Not the least of these challenges is to accomplish the sample size necessary to detect subtle genetic influences on the morphometry and function of the healthy brain. Aside from sample size, image acquisition and analysis methods need to be refined in order to ensure optimum sensitivity to genetic and complementary environmental influences. Then there is the vexing issue of interpreting the resulting data. We describe how researchers from the east coast of Australia and the west coast of America have embarked upon a collaboration to meet these challenges using data currently being collected from a large-scale twin study, and offer some opinions about future directions in the field.
随着涵盖神经影像学和遗传学的研究蓬勃发展，关于人类大脑遗传结构的非凡信息将被揭示出来。然而，首先有一些重大挑战需要应对。这些挑战中最主要的一点是要达到足够的样本量，以检测出基因对健康大脑形态学和功能的微妙影响。除了样本量之外，图像采集和分析方法也需要改进，以确保对基因及与之互补的环境影响具备最佳的敏感性。此外，还有解读所得数据这一棘手问题。我们描述了来自澳大利亚东海岸和美国西海岸的研究人员如何展开合作，利用目前从一项大规模双胞胎研究中收集的数据来应对这些挑战，并对该领域未来的发展方向提出了一些看法。
