Approved research

Exploring the genetic architecture of the heart and the genetic contribution to structural cardiac disease by cardiac magnetic resonance

Lay summary

Cardiac imaging provides information about heart structure and its behavior while beating. Computer algorithms can aid in the analysis of these complex images and estimate the size and motion of the heart with great detail. Potential links between these imaging data and genetic information can be found through joint analysis on large databases, such as the UK Biobank. We aim to identify additional genetic variation responsible for cardiac size, shape and function using automated image-analysis and further explore variants potentially involved in cardiac diseases. For this reason, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging acquired from nearly 40,000 individuals as well as their medical history (with a focus on cardiac disease), physical measures (such as blood pressure), lifestyle behavior and demographics are requested. Additionally, we plan to include the full database from nearly 500,000 individuals, where the resulting genetic models will be tested. We believe that our research proposal is consistent with the UK Biobank's purposes and that the public health impact would be significant, as we intend to give answers to research questions related to the causes of the most common cardiac diseases.