Heritable functional architecture in human visual cortex

Ivan Alvarez,Nonie J Finlayson,Shwe Ei,Benjamin De Haas,John A Greenwood,D Samuel Schwarzkopf

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118286

Abstract

How much of the functional organization of our visual system is inherited? Here we tested the heritability of retinotopic maps in human visual cortex using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We demonstrate that retinotopic organization shows a closer correspondence in monozygotic (MZ) compared to dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs, suggesting a partial genetic determination. Using population receptive field (pRF) analysis to examine the preferred spatial location and selectivity of these neuronal populations, we estimate a heritability around 10–20% for polar angle preferences and spatial selectivity, as quantified by pRF size, in extrastriate areas V2 and V3. Our findings are consistent with heritability in both the macroscopic arrangement of visual regions and stimulus tuning properties of visual cortex. This could constitute a neural substrate for variations in a range of perceptual effects, which themselves have been found to be at least partially genetically determined. These findings also add convergent evidence for the hypothesis that functional map topology is linked with cortical morphology.

Highlights

Many aspects of visual perception show pronounced individual differences
The general topology of the visual regions is more similar in the MZ pair than the DZ pair, which can be seen in the overlaid maps where borders between the visual areas are more closely aligned for the MZ (Fig. 1C) than the DZ (Fig. 1D) twins
We examined whether the topology of early visual cortex has a genetic component by conducting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) testing on identical and nonidentical twin pairs

Summary

Introduction

Many aspects of visual perception show pronounced individual differences These variations have further been shown to be at least partly genetically determined in processes including binocular rivalry (Miller et al, 2010), bistable perception (Shannon et al, 2011), eye movement patterns (Constantino et al, 2017; Kennedy et al, 2017), and even complex functions like face recognition (Wilmer et al, 2010; Zhu et al, 2010). Such oscillations may derive from the local circuitry of neuronal populations (Pinotsis et al, 2013) that in turn relate to the macroscopic cortical morphology (Gregory et al, 2016; Schwarzkopf et al, 2012)

Methods

Results

Conclusion