Unveiling the neuroimaging-genetic intersections in the human brain

Purpose of review

The prevalence of new public datasets of brain-wide and single-cell transcriptome data has created new opportunities to link neuroimaging findings with genetic data. The aim of this study is to present the different methodological approaches that have been used to combine this data.

Recent findings

Drawing from various sources of open access data, several studies have been able to correlate neuroimaging maps with spatial distribution of brain expression. These efforts have enabled researchers to identify functional annotations of related genes, identify specific cell types related to brain phenotypes, study the expression of genes across life span and highlight the importance of selected brain genes in disease genetic networks.

Summary

New transcriptome datasets and methodological approaches complement current neuroimaging work and will be crucial to improve our understanding of the biological mechanism that underlies many neurological conditions.

Source: Current Opinion in Neurology - July 20, 2021 Category: Neurology Tags: NEUROIMAGING: Edited by Massimo Filippi Source Type: research