title: Heritability of White Matter Fiber Tract Shapes: A HARDI Study of 198 Twins.
abstract: Genetic analysis of diffusion tensor images (DTI) shows great promise in revealing specific genetic variants that affect brain integrity and connectivity. Most genetic studies of DTI analyze voxel-based diffusivity indices in the image space (such as 3D maps of fractional anisotropy) and overlook tract geometry. Here we propose an automated workflow to cluster fibers using a white matter probabilistic atlas and perform genetic analysis on the shape characteristics of fiber tracts. We apply our approach to large study of 4-Tesla high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) data from 198 healthy, young adult twins (age: 20-30). Illustrative results show heritability for the shapes of several major tracts, as color-coded maps.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: fMRI Laboratory, University of Queensland, Brisbane St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Yonggang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Herston, QLD 4029, Australia.
authors.forename: Shantanu H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: Neda
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jahanshad
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.forename: Greig I
authors.initials: GI
authors.lastname: de Zubicaray
authors.forename: Katie L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: McMahon
authors.forename: Nicholas G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Margaret J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Arthur W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Toga
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Thompson
keywords: Clustering; Curve Matching; Fiber Alignment; HARDI; Heritability; Image Registration; Tractography; White Matter Probabilistic Atlas