Mapping brain asymmetry in health and disease through the ENIGMA consortium

Abstract

Left–right asymmetry of the human brain is one of its cardinal features, and also a complex, multivariate trait. Decades of research have suggested that brain asymmetry may be altered in psychiatric disorders. However, findings have been inconsistent and often based on small sample sizes. There are also open questions surrounding which structures are asymmetrical on average in the healthy population, and how variability in brain asymmetry relates to basic biological variables such as age and sex. Over the last 4 years, the ENIGMA-Laterality Working Group has published six studies of gray matter morphological asymmetry based on total sample sizes from roughly 3,500 to 17,000 individuals, whic..