Journal article
Heritability of brain volumes in older adults: The Older Australian Twins Study
SAH Batouli, PS Sachdev, W Wen, MJ Wright, D Ames, JN Trollor
Neurobiology of Aging | Published : 2014
Abstract
The relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to brain structure change throughout the lifespan. Brain structures have been reported to be highly heritable in middle-aged individuals and younger; however, the influence of genes on brain structure is less studied in older adults. We performed a magnetic resonance imaging study of 236 older twins, with a mean age of 71.4 ± 5.7 years, to examine the heritability of 53 brain global and lobar volumetric measures. Total brain volume (63%) and other volumetric measures were moderately to highly heritable in late life, and these genetic influences tended to decrease with age, suggesting a greater influence of environmental factors ..
View full abstractGrants
Funding Acknowledgements
This study was supported by an NHMRC/ARC Strategic Award Grant of the Aging Well, Aging Productively Program (ID No. 401126), and facilitated with access to the Australian Twin Registry. The authors thank all current and past OATS staff members for their contributions to data analysis, especially the following individuals: New South Wales (Pamela Azar, Henry Brodaty, John Crawford, Tanya Duckworth, Kristan Kang, Fiona Kumfor, Andrea Lammel, Alissa Nichles, Peter Schofield, Alison Walker, Shaily Aggarwal, Caroline Arasartnam), Queensland (Mark Strudwick, Katie McMahon, Harry Beeby, Anthony Caracella, Natalie Garden, Anjali Henders, Nick Martin, Clare Redfern, Amanda Toivanen), and Victoria (Nicholas Cortes, Karla Elliott, Christel Lemmon, Simone Mangelsdorf, Gihan de Mel, Tabitha Nash, Stacey Walker, Alex Connelly). The authors also thank all the participants and twins for their kind contribution to this study.