Identifying Heritable Brain Phenotypes in an Extended Pedigree of Vervet Monkeys

• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.5153-08.2009
• Publication Date: 2009-03-04T18:38:23Z
• Authors: Scott C. Fears; William P. Melega; Susan K. Service; Chris Lee; Kelly Chen; Zhuowen Tu; Matthew J. Jorgensen; Lynn A. Fairbanks; Rita M. Cantor; Nelson B. Freimer; Roger P. Woods
• Keywords: Brain morphometry

The area and volume of brain structural features, as assessed by high-resolution three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are among the most heritable measures relating to human CNS. We have conducted MRI scanning all available monkeys >2 years age (n = 357) from extended multigenerational pedigree Vervet Research Colony (VRC). Using a combination automated manual segmentation we quantified several correlated but distinct phenotypes. estimated heritabilities (h(2)) for these in VRC higher than those reported previously such features humans or other nonhuman primates: total (h(2) 0.99, SE 0.06), cerebral 0.98, cerebellar 0.86, 0.09), hippocampal 0.95, 0.07) corpus callosum cross-sectional areas 0.87, 0.07). These findings indicate that, controlled environment with inbreeding structure VRC, additive genetic factors account almost observed variance structure, suggest potential mapping quantitative trait loci underlying variance.