TY - JOUR
T1 - Nature and nurture shape structural connectivity in the face processing brain network
T2 - Face processing structural network ontogeny
AU - Quinones Sanchez, Juan Felipe
AU - Liu, Xinyang
AU - Zhou, Changsong
AU - Hildebrandt, Andrea
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the Research Group Linkage Project funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to Andrea Hildebrandt and Changsong Zhou. The work was also partially supported by the Hong Kong Baptist University Faculty Research Grant (FRG2/ 17-18/011) and Research Committee Interdisciplinary Research Clusters 2018/19 (RC-IRCMs/18-19/SCI/01). The analyses of the brain image data were conducted using the resources of the High-Performance Computing Cluster Centre at HKBU, which receives funding from the Research Grant Council (RGC) of Hong Kong and HKBU and the High Performance Cluster of the University of Oldenburg which is funded by the German Research Foundation and the Ministry of Science and Culture of the State of Lower Saxony in Germany. JFQS was supported through research funds of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg.
Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the Research Group Linkage Project funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to Andrea Hildebrandt and Changsong Zhou. The work was also partially supported by the Hong Kong Baptist University Faculty Research Grant (FRG2/ 17-18/011) and Research Committee Interdisciplinary Research Clusters 2018/19 (RC-IRCMs/18-19/SCI/01). The analyses of the brain image data were conducted using the resources of the High-Performance Computing Cluster Centre at HKBU, which receives funding from the Research Grant Council (RGC) of Hong Kong and HKBU and the High Performance Cluster of the University of Oldenburg which is funded by the German Research Foundation and the Ministry of Science and Culture of the State of Lower Saxony in Germany. JFQS was supported through research funds of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Carl von Ossietzky Universit?t Oldenburg.
PY - 2021/4/1
Y1 - 2021/4/1
N2 - Face processing is a key ability facilitating social cognition. Only a few studies explored how nature and nurture shape face processing ontogeny at the behavioral and neural level. Also, very little is known about the contributions of nature and nurture to the establishment of white matter fibers supporting this specific human ability. The main purpose of this study was to assess genetic and environmental influences on white matter bundles connecting atlas-defined and functionally-defined face-responsive areas in the brain. Diffusion weighted images from 408 twins (monozygotic = 264, dizygotic = 144) were obtained from the WU-Minn Human Connectome Project. Fractional anisotropy – a widely used measure of fiber quality – of seven white matter tracts in the face network and ten global white matter tracts was analyzed by means of Structural Equation Modeling for twin data. Results revealed small and moderate genetic effects on face network fiber quality in addition to their shared variance with global brain white matter integrity. Furthermore, a theoretically expected common latent factor accounted for limited genetic and larger environmental variance in multiple face network fibers. The findings suggest that both genetic and environmental factors explain individual differences in fiber quality within the face network, as compared with much larger genetic effects on global brain white matter quality. In addition to heritability, individual-specific environmental influences on the face processing brain network are large, a finding that suggests to connect nature and nurture views on this remarkably specific human ability.
AB - Face processing is a key ability facilitating social cognition. Only a few studies explored how nature and nurture shape face processing ontogeny at the behavioral and neural level. Also, very little is known about the contributions of nature and nurture to the establishment of white matter fibers supporting this specific human ability. The main purpose of this study was to assess genetic and environmental influences on white matter bundles connecting atlas-defined and functionally-defined face-responsive areas in the brain. Diffusion weighted images from 408 twins (monozygotic = 264, dizygotic = 144) were obtained from the WU-Minn Human Connectome Project. Fractional anisotropy – a widely used measure of fiber quality – of seven white matter tracts in the face network and ten global white matter tracts was analyzed by means of Structural Equation Modeling for twin data. Results revealed small and moderate genetic effects on face network fiber quality in addition to their shared variance with global brain white matter integrity. Furthermore, a theoretically expected common latent factor accounted for limited genetic and larger environmental variance in multiple face network fibers. The findings suggest that both genetic and environmental factors explain individual differences in fiber quality within the face network, as compared with much larger genetic effects on global brain white matter quality. In addition to heritability, individual-specific environmental influences on the face processing brain network are large, a finding that suggests to connect nature and nurture views on this remarkably specific human ability.
KW - DTI
KW - Face processing
KW - Fractional anisotropy
KW - Heritability
KW - Ontogeny
KW - Twin study
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100315517&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117736
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117736
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 33486123
AN - SCOPUS:85100315517
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 229
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
M1 - 117736
ER -