Anatomic brain asymmetry in vervet monkeys

Asymmetry is a prominent feature of human brains with important functional consequences. Many asymmetric traits show population bias, but little is known about the genetic and environmental sources contributing to inter-individual variance. Anatomic asymmetry has been observed in Old World monkeys,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2011-12, Vol.6 (12), p.e28243-e28243
Main Authors: Fears, Scott C, Scheibel, Kevin, Abaryan, Zvart, Lee, Chris, Service, Susan K, Jorgensen, Matthew J, Fairbanks, Lynn A, Cantor, Rita M, Freimer, Nelson B, Woods, Roger P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Asymmetry
Bias
Biology
Brain
Brain - anatomy & histology
Brain research
Cebinae
Cercopithecidae
Cercopithecus aethiops
Cerebrum - anatomy & histology
Chlorocebus aethiops
Environment
Evolution
Female
Genetics
Heritability
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Medicine
Monkeys
Monkeys & apes
Neurosciences
Pedigree
Phenotype
Psychiatry
Quantitative Trait, Heritable
Studies
Variance
Veterinary Science
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Summary:Asymmetry is a prominent feature of human brains with important functional consequences. Many asymmetric traits show population bias, but little is known about the genetic and environmental sources contributing to inter-individual variance. Anatomic asymmetry has been observed in Old World monkeys, but the evidence for the direction and extent of asymmetry is equivocal and only one study has estimated the genetic contributions to inter-individual variance. In this study we characterize a range of qualitative and quantitative asymmetry measures in structural brain MRIs acquired from an extended pedigree of Old World vervet monkeys (n = 357), and implement variance component methods to estimate the proportion of trait variance attributable to genetic and environmental sources. Four of six asymmetry measures show pedigree-level bias and one of the traits has a significant heritability estimate of about 30%. We also found that environmental variables more significantly influence the width of the right compared to the left prefrontal lobe.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0028243