Do Candidate Genes Affect the Brain’s White Matter Microstructure? Large-Scale Evaluation of 6,165 Diffusion MRI Scans

Jahanshad, N.; Ganjgahi, H.; Bralten, J.; den Braber, A.; Faskowitz, J.; Knodt, A.; Lemaitre, H.; Nir, T.; Patel, B.; Richie, S.; Sprooten, E.; van Hulzen, K.; Zavaliangos-Petropulu, A.; Zwiers, M.; Almasy, L.; Bastin, M.; Bernstein, M.; Blangero, J.; Curran, J.; Deary, I. J.; de Zubicary, G.; Duggirala, R.; Fisher, S.; Franke, B.; Fox, P.; Goldman, D.; Haberg, A.; Hariri, A.; Hong, L. E.; Hoogman, M.; Huentelman, M.; Martin, N.; Martinot, J.-L.; McIntosh, A.; McMahon, K.; Medland, S.; Mitchell, B.; Munoz-Maniega, S.; Olvera, R.; Oosterlaan, J.; Peterson, C.; Royle, N.; Saykin, A.; Schumann, G

doi:10.1101/107987

Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/107987

Do Candidate Genes Affect the Brain’s White Matter Microstructure? Large-Scale Evaluation of 6,165 Diffusion MRI Scans

View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

AbstractSusceptibility genes for psychiatric and neurological disorders - including APOE, BDNF, CLU,CNTNAP2, COMT, DISC1, DTNBP1, ErbB4, HFE, NRG1, NTKR3, and ZNF804A - have been reported to affect white matter (WM) microstructure in the healthy human brain, as assessed through diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). However, effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these genes explain only a small fraction of the overall variance and are challenging to detect reliably in single cohort studies. To date, few studies have evaluated the reproducibility of these results. As part of the ENIGMA-DTI consortium, we pooled regional fractional anisotropy (FA) measures for 6,165 subjects (CEU ancestry N=4,458) from 11 cohorts worldwide to evaluate effects of 15 candidate SNPs by examining their associations with WM microstructure. Additive association tests were conducted for each SNP. We used several meta-analytic and mega-analytic designs, and we evaluated regions of interest at multiple granularity levels. The ENIGMA-DTI protocol was able to detect single-cohort findings as originally reported. Even so, in this very large sample, no significant associations remained after multiple-testing correction for the 15 SNPs investigated. Suggestive associations (1.3x10-4 < p < 0.05, uncorrected) were found for BDNF, COMT, and ZNF804A in specific tracts. Meta-and mega-analyses revealed similar findings. Regardless of the approach, the previously reported candidate SNPs did not show significant associations with WM microstructure in this largest genetic study of DTI to date; the negative findings are likely not due to insufficient power. Genome-wide studies, involving large-scale meta-analyses, may help to discover SNPs robustly influencing WM microstructure.

Explore related subjects

neuroscience Preprint

Keep this discovery

BibTeX RIS

Jahanshad, N., Ganjgahi, H., Bralten, J., den Braber, A., Faskowitz, J., Knodt, A., Lemaitre, H., Nir, T., Patel, B., Richie, S., Sprooten, E., van Hulzen, K., Zavaliangos-Petropulu, A., Zwiers, M., Almasy, L., Bastin, M., Bernstein, M., Blangero, J., Curran, J., Deary, I. J., de Zubicary, G., Duggirala, R., Fisher, S., Franke, B., Fox, P., Goldman, D., Haberg, A., Hariri, A., Hong, L. E., Hoogman, M., Huentelman, M., Martin, N., Martinot, J.-L., McIntosh, A., McMahon, K., Medland, S., Mitchell, B., Munoz-Maniega, S., Olvera, R., Oosterlaan, J., Peterson, C., Royle, N., Saykin, A., Schumann, G. 2017-02-20. Do Candidate Genes Affect the Brain’s White Matter Microstructure? Large-Scale Evaluation of 6,165 Diffusion MRI Scans. https://doi.org/10.1101/107987

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Cell Types in Describing Neuronal Physiological Features

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) captures detailed gene expression profiles at scale, while patch-clamp recordings measure intrinsic neuronal electrophysiological properties. Modeling the relations between these two modalities remains a challenge. Here, we compare how well electrophysiological features can be predicted by traditional transcriptomic cell type classification, representations derived from a foundational model (scGPT) pretrained on large-scale scRNA-seq datasets, ion channel-coding genes, and highly variable genes. Using paired transcriptomic and electrophysiological patch-sequencing data from 495 human neurons from neurosurgical tissue, we find that cluster-level cell type representations consistently outperform highly variable gene selection, ion channel gene selection, and context-enriched scGPT embeddings. Notably, performance varies across model architectures and initializations, and the best results are obtained by combining the outputs of separate cell type and scGPT-based models. Together, these findings suggest that traditional discrete cellular classification is highly effective in predicting physiological features. For maximum performance it can be complemented by pretrained transformer models.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

A nonlinear inhibition pathway underlying cortical responses to tuned holographic optogenetic perturbations

Optogenetics enables causal manipulation of cortical activity. Perturbation responses can be counterintuitive due to network interactions, making theory essential for predicting them. Existing approaches often rely on linear approximations, which fail for many biologically relevant perturbations. Here we develop a nonlinear theory of responses to holographic perturbations in cell-type-specific recurrent networks with structured connectivity. We fit a nonlinear model to mouse V1 data, which shows cotuned-ensemble suppression: perturbing spatially clustered neurons with similar preferred orientations yields markedly stronger short-range suppression than perturbing untuned ensembles. We show that cotuned-ensemble suppression arises from a feature-tuned, nonlinear inhibition pathway implicating somatostatin-positive (SST) interneurons. The theory predicts that cotuned ensembles suppress parvalbumin-positive (PV) neurons but facilitate SST neurons, and links the degree of cotuned-ensemble suppression or facilitation to the variance of the SST response. This framework identifies mechanisms by which nonlinear inhibition sculpts cortical dynamics and establishes a predictive basis for targeted optogenetic interventions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Proteomic signatures of APOE ε4 across human tissues and cell types in Alzheimers disease

The apolipoprotein E {varepsilon}4 (APOE {varepsilon}4) allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimers disease (AD). However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This study included 1691 participants from the Religious Orders Study and Rush Memory and Aging Project (ROSMAP), 1226 participants from the Accelerating Medicines Partnership - Alzheimers Disease (AMP-AD) Diverse Cohorts Study, and 735 participants from the Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). To characterise APOE {varepsilon}4 molecular effects, we analysed proteomic data from plasma, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived astrocytes and neurons, as well as transcriptomic and proteomic data from multiple brain regions. The association of APOE {varepsilon}4 with AD neuropathology was also examined. APOE {varepsilon}4 carriers shared a plasma proteomic signature enriched for immune processes, irrespective of AD diagnosis. A machine learning classifier trained on this signature discriminated APOE {varepsilon}4 carriers from non-carriers in an independent cohort using CSF proteomics. APOE {varepsilon}4 carriage was associated with higher Braak stages and Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimers Disease (CERAD) score. However, only limited APOE {varepsilon}4-associated transcriptomic and proteomic changes were observed in bulk brain tissue, with poor cross-layer concordance. Proteomic analyses of iPSC-derived astrocytes and neurons further revealed cell-type-specific APOE {varepsilon}4-associated changes. APOE {varepsilon}4 is associated with a consistent proteomic signature across plasma and CSF. Its molecular effects in the brain differ across cell types, brain regions and molecular layers. These findings support the need for cell-type-resolved multi-omic studies to elucidate how APOE {varepsilon}4 confers AD risk.

neuroscience↗