Phenotypic and genetic associations of quantitative magnetic susceptibility in UK Biobank brain imaging

COEX 

A key aim in epidemiological neuroscience is identification of markers to assess brain health and monitor therapeutic interventions. Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) is an emerging MRI technique that measures tissue magnetic susceptibility and has been shown to detect pathological changes in tissue iron. Here I present an open resource of QSM-based imaging measures of multiple brain structures in 35,885 subjects (45-82 years old) from the UK Biobank prospective epidemiological study. We identify phenotypic associations of magnetic susceptibility that include body iron, disease, diet, and alcohol consumption. Genome-wide associations relate magnetic susceptibility to genetic variants with biological functions involving iron, myelin, and extracellular matrix. These new imaging phenotypes are being integrated into the core UK Biobank measures provided to researchers world-wide, creating potential to discover novel, non-invasive markers of brain health.