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Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood

Prosocial behavior and empathy are important aspects of developing social relations in childhood. Prior studies showed protracted structural development of social brain regions associated with prosocial behavior. However, it remains unknown how structure of the social brain is influenced by genetic...

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Autores principales: van der Meulen, Mara, Wierenga, Lara M., Achterberg, Michelle, Drenth, Nadieh, van IJzendoorn, Marinus H., Crone, Eveline A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7374548/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32716847
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100782
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author van der Meulen, Mara
Wierenga, Lara M.
Achterberg, Michelle
Drenth, Nadieh
van IJzendoorn, Marinus H.
Crone, Eveline A.
author_facet van der Meulen, Mara
Wierenga, Lara M.
Achterberg, Michelle
Drenth, Nadieh
van IJzendoorn, Marinus H.
Crone, Eveline A.
author_sort van der Meulen, Mara
collection PubMed
description Prosocial behavior and empathy are important aspects of developing social relations in childhood. Prior studies showed protracted structural development of social brain regions associated with prosocial behavior. However, it remains unknown how structure of the social brain is influenced by genetic or environmental factors, and whether overlapping heritability factors explain covariance in structure of the social brain and behavior. The current study examined this hypothesis in a twin sample (aged 7–9-year; N = 512). Bilateral measures of surface area and cortical thickness of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and precuneus were analyzed. Results showed genetic contributions to surface area and cortical thickness for all brain regions. We found additional shared environmental influences for TPJ, suggesting that this region might be relatively more sensitive to social experiences. Genetic factors also influenced parent-reported prosocial behavior (A = 45%) and empathy (A = 59%). We provided initial evidence that the precuneus shares genetically determined variance with empathy, suggesting a possible small genetic overlap (9%) in brain structure and empathy. These findings show that structure of the social brain and empathy are driven by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, with some factors overlapping for brain structure and behavior.
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spelling pubmed-73745482020-07-23 Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood van der Meulen, Mara Wierenga, Lara M. Achterberg, Michelle Drenth, Nadieh van IJzendoorn, Marinus H. Crone, Eveline A. Dev Cogn Neurosci Articles from the Special Issue on Teaming up to understand individual development; Edited by Chantal Kemner, Angela Sarabdjitsingh, Margot Peeters, Eveline de Zeeuw, Stefanie Nelemans, Anna van Duijvenvoord. Prosocial behavior and empathy are important aspects of developing social relations in childhood. Prior studies showed protracted structural development of social brain regions associated with prosocial behavior. However, it remains unknown how structure of the social brain is influenced by genetic or environmental factors, and whether overlapping heritability factors explain covariance in structure of the social brain and behavior. The current study examined this hypothesis in a twin sample (aged 7–9-year; N = 512). Bilateral measures of surface area and cortical thickness of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and precuneus were analyzed. Results showed genetic contributions to surface area and cortical thickness for all brain regions. We found additional shared environmental influences for TPJ, suggesting that this region might be relatively more sensitive to social experiences. Genetic factors also influenced parent-reported prosocial behavior (A = 45%) and empathy (A = 59%). We provided initial evidence that the precuneus shares genetically determined variance with empathy, suggesting a possible small genetic overlap (9%) in brain structure and empathy. These findings show that structure of the social brain and empathy are driven by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, with some factors overlapping for brain structure and behavior. Elsevier 2020-05-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7374548/ /pubmed/32716847 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100782 Text en © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Articles from the Special Issue on Teaming up to understand individual development; Edited by Chantal Kemner, Angela Sarabdjitsingh, Margot Peeters, Eveline de Zeeuw, Stefanie Nelemans, Anna van Duijvenvoord.
van der Meulen, Mara
Wierenga, Lara M.
Achterberg, Michelle
Drenth, Nadieh
van IJzendoorn, Marinus H.
Crone, Eveline A.
Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood
title Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood
title_full Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood
title_fullStr Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood
title_full_unstemmed Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood
title_short Genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood
title_sort genetic and environmental influences on structure of the social brain in childhood
topic Articles from the Special Issue on Teaming up to understand individual development; Edited by Chantal Kemner, Angela Sarabdjitsingh, Margot Peeters, Eveline de Zeeuw, Stefanie Nelemans, Anna van Duijvenvoord.
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7374548/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32716847
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100782
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