TY  - THES
AU  - Kraljevic, Nevena
TI  - Phenotypic and Genetic Correlation of Cognition, Affect, and Brain Morphometry
PB  - Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf
VL  - Masterarbeit
M1  - FZJ-2019-05210
SP  - 85
PY  - 2019
N1  - Masterarbeit, Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, 2019
AB  - Background: Cognition is marked by complex cognitive processes and can be quantifiedusing intelligence constructs. On the other hand, affect is an indistinct construct,seemingly happening subconsciously and difficult to quantify (Newell & Shanks, 2014;Tamietto & de Gelder, 2010). A large body of evidence has shown that cognition isheritable and relates to brain structure (Devlin et al., 1997; Krapohl et al., 2014). Indeed,studies have shown that co-variation of cognition and brain structure is driven by sharedadditive genetic effects (Toga & Thompson, 2005). Contrary to this, little is known aboutthe genetic basis of affective behavior. The current study investigates how cognition hasa phenotypic and genetic correlation with emotion processing, and positive and negativeaffect, and whether these aptitudes relate to similar brain regions.Methods: Using a large sample of healthy individuals based on the open access twindesignof the Human Connectome Project, phenotypic correlation and heritability and coheritabilityof cognitive abilities, emotion processing, and positive and negative affectwere tested using SOLAR-Eclipse. Following, these aptitudes were correlated to corticalthickness, using a 200 parcel-based approach (Schaefer et al., 2018) to summarizeindividual differences in grey-matter structure in the cortex. Last, the genetic correlationbetween total cognitive score, emotion processing, and positive and negative affect on onehand, and cortical thickness on the other was assessed.Results: Behaviorally, a positive phenotypic correlation of cognitive abilities with bothsuccessful emotion processing and positive affect was observed. The positive correlationbetween cognitive abilities and emotion processing was shown to be driven by additivegenetic effects. At the brain level, phenotypic and genetic correlation between cognitionand affect was strongest in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Positive affect additionallyshowed phenotypic correlation in occipital and parietal lobe. In sum, this study pointstoward a shared genetic basis of cognition and affect, anchored in the dorsolateralprefrontal cortex.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)19
DO  - DOI:10.34734/FZJ-2019-05210
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/865944
ER  -