Genetic overlap between multivariate measures of human functional brain connectivity and psychiatric disorders

Psychiatric disorders are complex, heritable and highly polygenic. Supported by findings of abnormalities in functional magnetic resonance imaging-based measures of brain connectivity, current theoretical and empirical accounts have conceptualized them as disorders of brain connectivity and dysfunctional integration of brain signaling. However, the extent to which these findings reflect common genetic factors remains unclear. Here we performed a multivariate genome-wide association analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging-based functional brain connectivity in a sample of 30,701 individuals from the UK Biobank and investigated the shared genetic determinants with eight major psychiatric disorders. The analysis revealed significant genetic overlap between functional brain connectivity and schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, anxiety and major depression, adding further genetic support for the dysconnectivity hypothesis of psychiatric disorders and identifying potential genetic and functional targets for future studies.