Journal
GENES BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR
Volume 5, Issue -, Pages 64-77Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1601-183X.2006.00196.x
Keywords
anatomy; asymmetry; cognition; MRI
Categories
Funding
- NIDCD NIH HHS [R03 DC005364, DC002922, R01 DC006957, DC005364, DC006957, R03 DC005364-03] Funding Source: Medline
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS [R01DC006957, R03DC005364, R01DC002922] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
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Although talents and disabilities appear to run in families, direct links between genes and cognitive ability are difficult to establish. Investigators are currently searching for intermediate phenotypes with plausible links to both genome and cognome (the cognitive phenotype). Cortical anatomy could provide one such intermediate phenotype. Variation in cortical size, asymmetry and sulcal pattern is influenced by genetic variation in neurotrophic factors and can predict variation in verbal and mathematical talent. Anecdotal evidence suggests that individuals with a rare morphological variant of Sylvian fissure sometimes have superior visualization ability combined with verbal deficits. Documentation of such 'cognitive cortical syndromes' might prove as genetically informative as the identification of dysmorphic syndromes associated with mental retardation. A necessary prerequisite for the establishment of such syndromes is a reliable technique for the identification of cortical patterns. Recent technical advances in software for automatically labeling and measuring cortical sulci now provide the possibility of establishing standard measures for their shape, size and location. Such measures are a prerequisite for genetic studies of cortical patterns that could illuminate the neurodevelopmental pathways by which genes affect cognitive ability.
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