Heritability of resting state EEG functional connectivity patterns

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Genetics
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• Previous research in Dutch twins indicated genetic influence on functional brain connectivity from electroencephalography (EEG) recordings.
• Graph analysis descriptors of brain networks, such as clustering and path length, were also found to be heritable.

Purpose of the Study:

• To replicate and confirm previous findings on the heritability of functional brain connectivity measures in an Australian twin and sibling cohort.
• To investigate the genetic architecture of synchronization likelihood, cluster coefficient, and path length in resting-state EEG data.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of resting-state electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings from 879 16-year-old twins and 93 siblings in Australia.
• Twin and sibling modeling to estimate heritability of synchronization likelihood, cluster coefficient, and path length across different frequency bands (alpha, theta, beta).

Main Results:

• Heritability estimates for synchronization likelihood ranged from 27-74%.
• Heritability for cluster coefficient and path length in the alpha and theta bands were 40-44% and 23-40%, respectively.
• Path length in the beta band frequency showed a heritability of 41%.

Conclusions:

• The findings corroborate that synchronization likelihood, cluster coefficient, and path length are heritable traits.
• These brain connectivity measures and network parameters show potential as endophenotypes for behavioral traits and neurological disorders.