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Genetic influence demonstrated for MEG‐recorded somatosensory evoked responses
Author(s) -
Van 't Ent Dennis,
Van Soelen Inge L.C.,
Stam Kees J.,
De Geus Eco J.C.,
Boomsma Dorret I.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2010.01012.x
Subject(s) - psychology , somatosensory system , somatosensory evoked potential , neuroscience , magnetoencephalography , audiology , cognitive psychology , electroencephalography , medicine
We tested for a genetic influence on magnetoencephalogram (MEG)‐recorded somatosensory evoked fields (SEFs) in 20 monozygotic (MZ) and 14 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs. Previous electroencephalogram (EEG) studies that demonstrated a genetic contribution to evoked responses generally focused on characteristics of representative brain potentials. Here we demonstrate significantly smaller amplitude differences within MZ compared to DZ twin pairs for the complete SEF time series (across left and right hand SEFs: 0.37 vs. 0.60 pT 2 and 0.28 vs. 0.39 pT 2 for primary [SI] and secondary [SII] sensory cortex activation) and higher MZ than DZ wave shape correlations (.71 vs. .44 and .52 vs. .35 for SI and SII activation). Our findings indicate a genetic influence on MEG‐recorded evoked brain activity and also confirm our recent conclusion (van 't Ent, van Soelen, Stam, De Geus, & Boomsma, 2009) that higher MZ resemblance for EEG amplitudes is not trivially reflecting greater MZ concordance in intervening biological tissues.