Magnetoencephalography in Twins Reveals a Strong Genetic Determination of the Peak Frequency of Visually Induced Gamma-Band Synchronization

Journal of Neuroscience - Tập 32 Số 10 - Trang 3388-3392 - 2012
Stan van Pelt1, Dorret I. Boomsma2, Pascal Fries3,4
1Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6525 EN Nijmegen, The Netherlands. [email protected]
2Biological Psychology
3Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6525 EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
4Ernst Stru ¨ngmann Institute (ESI) in Cooperation with Max Planck Society, 60528 Frankfurt, Germany

Tóm tắt

Many aspects of brain processing are intimately linked to brain rhythms. Essentially all classical brain rhythms, i.e., delta, theta, alpha, beta, and sleep waves, are highly heritable. This renders brain rhythms an interesting intermediate phenotype for cognitive and behavioral traits. One brain rhythm that has been particularly strongly linked to cognition is the gamma rhythm: it is involved in attention, short- and long-term memory, and conscious awareness. It has been described in sensory and motor cortices, association and control structures, and the hippocampus. In contrast to most other brain rhythms, the gamma frequency highly depends on stimulus and task conditions, suggesting a low heritability. However, the heritability of gamma has not been assessed. Here, we show that visually induced gamma-band synchronization in humans is strongly genetically determined. Eighty twin subjects (20 monozygotic and 20 dizygotic twin pairs) viewed a moving sinusoidal grating while their brain activity was recorded using magnetoencephalography. The stimulus induced spectrally confined gamma-band activity in sensors over visual cortex in all subjects, with individual peak frequencies ranging from 45 to 85 Hz. Gamma-band peak frequencies were highly correlated across monozygotic twins (r= 0.88), but not across dizygotic twins (r= 0.32) or unrelated subjects (r= 0.02). This implies a heritability of the gamma-band frequency of 91%. This strong genetic determination suggests that gamma-related cognitive functions are under close genetic control.

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