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Subcortical-PFC resting state connectivity
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Conclusion
Taken together, this study was the first to investigate twin effects in subcortical- subcortical and subcortical-cortical RS-fMRI in children, providing important insights in genetic and environmental influences on childhood brain connectivity. The behavioral genetic analyses showed moderate to substantial heritability of striatum-prefrontal cortex brain connectivity, and environmental influences on amygdala-orbitofrontal cortex connectivity, with implications for our understanding of the etiology of disorders that are associated with disrupted connectivity, such as drug abuse and depression. Prior studies have mainly estimated heritability for brain connectivity in adults (Yang et al., 2016), whereas child development provides unique possibilities for understanding the role of shared environment (Polderman et al., 2015). Examining how limbic/subcortical brain regions are functionally connected to the prefrontal cortex and whether a positive childrearing environment can foster these connections are important issues to address in future research. The current findings provide the first step in laying the groundwork for understanding genetic and environmental influences in shaping brain connectivity and may be the starting point for a better understanding of how brain development is both biologically based and environmentally driven.
Acknowledgments
The Leiden Consortium on Individual Development is funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO grant number 024.001.003). MA was additionally funded by the Ter Meulen Grant of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
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