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Approved research

Genetic and phenotypic investigation of neural brain network connectivity

Principal Investigator: Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
Approved Research ID: 20904
Approval date: June 12th 2018

Lay summary

We will investigate if genetic variants contribute to brain networks (i.e. how different parts of the brain is connected with each other), and if these genetic variants also contribute to psychiatric conditions, memory, and cognition. Brain networks have been linked to several psychiatric conditions. However, it is not clear if alterations in these networks contribute to psychiatric conditions or are a cause of psychiatric conditions. We will use genetics to tease apart this relationship. We will conduct a genome-wide association study of architecture of brain networks. In this we will test for the association of genetic variants with specific brain network measures. We will then test if the genetic variants associated with brain networks also contribute to psychiatric conditions. We will require genetic, neuroimaging and phenotypic data from the whole cohort. This includes neuroimaging data from all 100,000 individuals when available, in a phased manner, and genetic and phenotypic data from all individuals for whom data is available.