title: A network of genes, genetic disorders, and brain areas.
abstract: The network-based approach has been used to describe the relationship among genes and various phenotypes, producing a network describing complex biological relationships. Such networks can be constructed by aggregating previously reported associations in the literature from various databases. In this work, we applied the network-based approach to investigate how different brain areas are associated to genetic disorders and genes. In particular, a tripartite network with genes, genetic diseases, and brain areas was constructed based on the associations among them reported in the literature through text mining. In the resulting network, a disproportionately large number of gene-disease and disease-brain associations were attributed to a small subset of genes, diseases, and brain areas. Furthermore, a small number of brain areas were found to be associated with a large number of the same genes and diseases. These core brain regions encompassed the areas identified by the previous genome-wide association studies, and suggest potential areas of focus in the future imaging genetics research. The approach outlined in this work demonstrates the utility of the network-based approach in studying genetic effects on the brain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistical Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States of America. shayasak @ wfubmc.edu
authors.forename: Satoru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hayasaka
authors.forename: Christina E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Hugenschmidt
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Laurienti
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism*; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000235:genetics*; D019295:Computational Biology; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D006801:Humans