School of Medicine Publications and Presentations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-18-2017
Abstract
The hippocampal formation is a brain structure integrally involved in episodic memory, spatial navigation, cognition and stress responsiveness. Structural abnormalities in hippocampal volume and shape are found in several common neuropsychiatric disorders. To identify the genetic underpinnings of hippocampal structure here we perform a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 33,536 individuals and discover six independent loci significantly associated with hippocampal volume, four of them novel. Of the novel loci, three lie within genes (ASTN2, DPP4 and MAST4) and one is found 200 kb upstream of SHH. A hippocampal subfield analysis shows that a locus within the MSRB3 gene shows evidence of a localized effect along the dentate gyrus, subiculum, CA1 and fissure. Further, we show that genetic variants associated with decreased hippocampal volume are also associated with increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease (rg ¼ 0.155). Our findings suggest novel biological pathways through which human genetic variation influences hippocampal volume and risk for neuropsychiatric illness.
Recommended Citation
Hibar, D. P., Adams, H., Jahanshad, N., Chauhan, G., Stein, J. L., Hofer, E., Renteria, M. E., Bis, J. C., Arias-Vasquez, A., Ikram, M. K., Desrivières, S., Vernooij, M. W., Abramovic, L., Alhusaini, S., Amin, N., Andersson, M., Arfanakis, K., Aribisala, B. S., Armstrong, N. J., Athanasiu, L., … Ikram, M. A. (2017). Novel genetic loci associated with hippocampal volume. Nature communications, 8, 13624. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13624
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
Nature Communications
DOI
10.1038/ncomms13624
Academic Level
faculty
Mentor/PI Department
Office of Human Genetics
Comments
Copyright The Author(s) 2017