Liu Feng, Xu Jiayuan, Guo Lining, Qin Wen, Liang Meng, Schumann Gunter, Yu Chunshui
Department of Radiology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, 300052, PR China.
School of Medical Imaging and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300203, PR China.
Mol Psychiatry. 2023 Jan;28(1):17-27. doi: 10.1038/s41380-022-01669-6. Epub 2022 Jul 5.
Individual differences in human brain structure, function, and behavior can be attributed to genetic variations, environmental exposures, and their interactions. Although genome-wide association studies have identified many genetic variants associated with brain imaging phenotypes, environmental exposures associated with these phenotypes remain largely unknown. Here, we propose that environmental neuroscience should pay more attention on exploring the associations between lifetime environmental exposures (exposome) and brain imaging phenotypes and identifying both cumulative environmental effects and their vulnerable age windows during the life course. Exposome-neuroimaging association studies face several challenges including the accurate measurement of the totality of environmental exposures varied in space and time, the highly correlated structure of the exposome, and the lack of standardized approaches for exposome-wide association studies. By agnostically scanning the effects of environmental exposures on brain imaging phenotypes and their interactions with genomic variations, exposome-neuroimaging association analyses will improve our understanding of causal factors associated with individual differences in brain structure and function as well as their relations with cognitive abilities and neuropsychiatric disorders.
人类大脑结构、功能和行为的个体差异可归因于基因变异、环境暴露及其相互作用。尽管全基因组关联研究已经确定了许多与脑成像表型相关的基因变异，但与这些表型相关的环境暴露在很大程度上仍不为人知。在此，我们建议环境神经科学应更加关注探索终生环境暴露（暴露组）与脑成像表型之间的关联，并确定生命过程中的累积环境影响及其易感年龄窗口。暴露组-神经影像关联研究面临若干挑战，包括准确测量在空间和时间上变化的环境暴露总量、暴露组的高度相关结构，以及缺乏全暴露组关联研究的标准化方法。通过无偏地扫描环境暴露对脑成像表型的影响及其与基因变异的相互作用，暴露组-神经影像关联分析将增进我们对与大脑结构和功能个体差异相关的因果因素及其与认知能力和神经精神疾病关系的理解。
