Brain structure and function show distinct relations with genetic predispositions to mental health and cognition

Abstract

AbstractMental health and cognitive achievement are partly heritable. To identify the underlying neural mechanisms, we associated genetic predispositions to various mental health and cognitive traits with a large set of structural and functional brain measures from the UK Biobank (N=36,799). We show that genetic predispositions to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, smoking initiation, and cognitive traits have stronger associations with brain structure than with brain function, whereas genetic predispositions to most other psychiatric disorders have stronger associations with brain function than with brain structure. These results reveal that genetic predispositions to mental health and cognitive traits have distinct brain profiles.