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Symmetric Bihemispheric Postmortem Brain Cutting to Study Healthy and Pathological Brain Conditions in Humans
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Dissociable brain structural asymmetry patterns reveal unique phenome-wide profiles
Karin Saltoun1,2,3,4, Ralph Adolphs5,6, Lynn K Paul5,7,8
1McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Nature Human Behaviour
|November 7, 2022
Summary
Brain asymmetry involves more than just paired regions. New research reveals distributed patterns in brain structure linked to diverse factors like lifestyle and mental health.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Human Brain Imaging
- Genetics
Background:
- Left-hemisphere lesions impair speech (Broca, ~150 years ago).
- Brain regions exhibit lateralized structure and function.
- Previous studies focused on pairwise comparisons of homologous regions.
Purpose of the Study:
- Characterize separable whole-brain asymmetry patterns in grey and white matter structure.
- Identify spatially distributed signatures of brain asymmetry.
- Explore associations between asymmetry patterns and phenotypes.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of structural MRI data from 37,441 UK Biobank participants.
- Pooling information on left-right shifts for whole-brain analysis.
- Deconvolution of spatially distributed asymmetry signatures.
Main Results:
- Identified complementary, rather than single dominant, asymmetry patterns.
- Classically asymmetric regions belong to multiple asymmetry patterns.
- Asymmetry patterns associated with unique sets of phenotypes (lifestyle, demographics, mental health).
Conclusions:
- Brain asymmetry is characterized by distributed, complementary patterns.
- These patterns offer a more comprehensive view than pairwise comparisons.
- Brain asymmetry signatures are linked to a wide range of individual differences.
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