Gao Wei, Elton Amanda, Zhu Hongtu, Alcauter Sarael, Smith J Keith, Gilmore John H, Lin Weili
Departments of Radiology, Biomedical Research Imaging Center,
Departments of Radiology, Biomedical Research Imaging Center.
J Neurosci. 2014 Aug 20;34(34):11288-96. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5072-13.2014.
Infancy is a period featuring a high level of intersubject variability but the brain basis for such variability and the potential genetic/environmental contributions remain largely unexplored. The assessment of the brain's functional connectivity during infancy by the resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) technique (Biswal et al., 1995) provides a unique means to probe the brain basis of intersubject variability during infancy. In this study, an unusually large typically developing human infant sample including 58 singletons, 132 dizygotic twins, and 98 monozygotic twins with rsfMRI scans during the first 2 years of life was recruited to delineate the spatial and temporal developmental patterns of both the intersubject variability of and genetic effects on the brain's functional connectivity. Through systematic voxelwise functional connectivity analyses, our results revealed that the intersubject variability at birth features lower variability in primary functional areas but higher values in association areas. Although the relative pattern remains largely consistent, the magnitude of intersubject variability undergoes an interesting U-shaped growth during the first 2 years of life. Overall, the intersubject variability patterns during infancy show both adult-like and infant-specific characteristics (Mueller et al., 2013). On the other hand, age-dependent genetic effects were observed showing significant but bidirectional relationships with intersubject variability. The temporal and spatial patterns of the intersubject variability of and genetic contributions to the brain's functional connectivity documented in this study shed light on the largely uncharted functional development of the brain during infancy.
婴儿期是一个个体间变异性很高的时期,但这种变异性的大脑基础以及潜在的遗传/环境因素贡献在很大程度上仍未得到探索。通过静息态功能磁共振成像(rsfMRI)技术(Biswal等人,1995年)对婴儿期大脑功能连接性进行评估,为探究婴儿期个体间变异性的大脑基础提供了一种独特的方法。在本研究中,招募了一个异常大的典型发育人类婴儿样本,包括58名单胎、132对异卵双胞胎和98对同卵双胞胎,他们在生命的头两年内进行了rsfMRI扫描,以描绘大脑功能连接性的个体间变异性和遗传效应的空间和时间发育模式。通过系统的体素功能连接性分析,我们的结果显示,出生时的个体间变异性在主要功能区域的变异性较低,但在联合区域的值较高。尽管相对模式在很大程度上保持一致,但个体间变异性的大小在生命的头两年呈现出有趣的U形增长。总体而言,婴儿期的个体间变异性模式显示出成人样和婴儿特异性特征(Mueller等人,2013年)。另一方面,观察到年龄依赖性遗传效应与个体间变异性存在显著但双向的关系。本研究记录的大脑功能连接性的个体间变异性和遗传贡献的时间和空间模式,为婴儿期大脑功能发育这一很大程度上未知的领域提供了启示。