Regional patterns of human cortex development correlate with underlying neurobiology

Human brain morphology undergoes complex changes over the lifespan. Despite recent progress in tracking brain development via normative models, current knowledge of underlying biological mechanisms is highly limited. We demonstrate that human cortical thickness development and aging trajectories unfold along patterns of molecular and cellular brain organization, traceable from population-level to individual developmental trajectories. During childhood and adolescence, cortex-wide spatial distributions of dopaminergic receptors, inhibitory neurons, glial cell populations, and brain-metabolic features explain up to 50% of the variance associated with a lifespan model of regional cortical thickness trajectories. In contrast, modeled cortical thickness change patterns during adulthood are best explained by cholinergic and glutamatergic neurotransmitter receptor and transporter distributions. These relationships are supported by developmental gene expression trajectories and translate to individual longitudinal data from over 8000 adolescents, explaining up to 59% of developmental change at cohort- and 18% at single-subject level. Integrating neurobiological brain atlases with normative modeling and population neuroimaging provides a biologically meaningful path to understand brain development and aging in living humans.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2024-09-12
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52366-7
Citations
29
Primary Topic
Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
9.60
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article

Regional patterns of human cortex development correlate with underlying neurobiology

Andreas Heinz, Sylvane Desrivières, Amin Saberi, Hugh P Garavan et al.
29 citations
Nature Communications
Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
9.60
article

Regional patterns of human cortex development correlate with underlying neurobiology

Andreas Heinz, Sylvane Desrivières, Amin Saberi, Hugh P Garavan, Simon Bodo Eickhoff, Rüdiger Brühl, Tomáš Paus, Leon D. Lotter, Justine Y. Hansen, Tobias Banaschewski, Sarah Hohmann, Casey Paquola, Jean‐Luc Martinot, Arun L.W. Bokde, Juliane H. Fröhner, Herta Flor, Antoine Grigis, Robert Whelan, Henrik Walter, Bratislav Mišić, Luise Poustka, Juergen Dukart, Michael N. Smolka, Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos, Frauke Nees, Gareth J. Barker, Penny Anne Gowland, Eric Artiges A, Günter Schumann, Marie-Laure Paillère, Nilakshi Vaidya
article en
29 citations

Abstract

Human brain morphology undergoes complex changes over the lifespan. Despite recent progress in tracking brain development via normative models, current knowledge of underlying biological mechanisms is highly limited. We demonstrate that human cortical thickness development and aging trajectories unfold along patterns of molecular and cellular brain organization, traceable from population-level to individual developmental trajectories. During childhood and adolescence, cortex-wide spatial distributions of dopaminergic receptors, inhibitory neurons, glial cell populations, and brain-metabolic features explain up to 50% of the variance associated with a lifespan model of regional cortical thickness trajectories. In contrast, modeled cortical thickness change patterns during adulthood are best explained by cholinergic and glutamatergic neurotransmitter receptor and transporter distributions. These relationships are supported by developmental gene expression trajectories and translate to individual longitudinal data from over 8000 adolescents, explaining up to 59% of developmental change at cohort- and 18% at single-subject level. Integrating neurobiological brain atlases with normative modeling and population neuroimaging provides a biologically meaningful path to understand brain development and aging in living humans.

Nature CommunicationsVol. 15(1)
University of Vermont (US), Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (DE), Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (CA), University of Nottingham (GB), Inserm (FR), Forschungszentrum Jülich (DE), University of Mannheim (DE), King's College London (GB), Trinity College Dublin (IE), Heidelberg University (DE), Fudan University (CN), Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR), Université Paris-Saclay (FR), University Hospital Heidelberg (DE), Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine (CA), Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (DE), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE), Sorbonne Université (FR), Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris (FR), Central Institute of Mental Health (DE), German Center for Infection Research (DE), Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (FR), CEA Paris-Saclay (FR), Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (DE), Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (DE), Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology (CN), Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (DE), McGill University (CA), Freie Universität Berlin (DE), Technische Universität Dresden (DE), Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (DE)
Openalex Percentile: Top 1%
Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
9.60
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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