Asymmetries of the Arcuate Fasciculus in Monozygotic Twins Genetic and Nongenetic Influences.docVIP

AsymmetriesoftheArcuateFasciculusinMonozygotic Twins:GeneticandNongeneticInfluences IsabelleS.Ha¨berling*,GjurgjicaBadzakova-Trajkov,MichaelC.Corballis ResearchCentreforCognitiveNeuroscienceandDepartmentofPsychology,TheUniversityofAuckland,Auckland,NewZealand Abstract We assessed cerebral asymmetry for language in 35 monozygotic twin pairs. Using DTI, we reconstructed the arcuate fasciculusineachtwin.Amongthemaletwins,right-handedpairsshowedgreaterleft-sidedasymmetryofconnectivityin thearcuatefasciculusthandidthosewithdiscordanthandedness,andwithinthediscordantgrouptheright-handershad greater left-sided volume asymmetry of the arcuate fasciculus than did their left-handed co-twins. There were no such effectsinthefemaletwins.Cerebralasymmetryforlanguageshowedmoreconsistentresults,withthemoreleft-cerebrally dominanttwinsalsoshowingmoreleftwardasymmetryofhighanisotropicfibersinthearcuatefasciculus,aresultapplying equally to female as to male twins. Reversals of arcuate fasciculus asymmetry were restricted to pairs discordant for language dominance, with the left-cerebrally dominant twins showing leftward and the right-cerebrally dominant twins rightward asymmetry of anisotropic diffusion in the arcuate fasciculus. Because monozygotic twin pairs share the same genotype, our results indicate a strong nongenetic component in arcuate fasciculus asymmetry, particularly in those discordantforcerebralasymmetry. Citation: Ha¨berling IS, Badzakova-Trajkov G, Corballis MC (2013) Asymmetries of the Arcuate Fasciculus in Monozygotic Twins: Genetic and Nongenetic Influences.PLoSONE8(1):e52315.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052315 Editor:JayPillai,JohnsHopkinsSchoolofMedicine,UnitedStatesofAmerica ReceivedJune18,2012;AcceptedNovember16,2012;PublishedJanuary2,2013 Copyright: ? 2013 Ha¨berling etal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricteduse,distribution,andreproductioninanymedium,providedtheorigin