The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Publisher Correction: Sex-dimorphic genetic effects and novel loci for fasting glucose and insulin variability.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21276-3</jats:p

"Der Zeitgenosse hat keine Perspektive"

Das Tutorium hat sich mit der Methodik der Oral History einen Zugang zu einer Erfahrungsgeschichte deutsch-deutscher Geisteswissenschaften erarbeitet. Dabei stand exemplarisch die Durchführung zweier lebensgeschichtlicher Forscher-Interviews – ein Zeithistoriker aus der DDR und ein DDR-Forscher aus der Bundesrepublik – im Zentrum. In den biographischen Narrationen der Forscher, deren Gegenstand mit der letzten großen Zäsur des 20. Jahrhunderts von der Landkarte verschwand, sollten „Erfahrungsräume“ erschlossen und rekonstruiert werden. Zur Vorbereitung der beiden lebensgeschichtlichen Interviews erarbeiteten wir im Tutorium die Methodik der Oral History, fragten nach der Besonderheit biographischer Erinnerungen und betrachteten den wissenschaftshistorischen Kontext der DDR-Forschung. Die Interviews wurden von den Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern geführt und aufbereitet. In einer abschließenden Runde sollten mögliche Zugänge zum Interview als historische Quelle vorgestellt werden

Towards a socio-ecological spatial morphology: integrating elements of urban morphology and landscape ecology

The recent shift towards greater emphasis on biodiversity and urban ecosystems has increased the need for greater understanding of the green areas in cities as ecological environments. However, landscape ecology and urban morphology have yet to be integrated into a joint field. In this paper steps are taken towards developing an integrated socio-ecological urban morphology based on developments in each field. Such a morphology can inform professional practice in urban design. Comparisons of the different objects of description in the two fields are made and their different means of description - notably the patches, corridors and the matrix in landscape ecology, and the streets, plots and buildings in urban morphology. This provides a basis for a joint description in which these elements together form a configuration of patches

Towards a socio-ecological spatial morphology: a joint network approach to urban form and landscape ecology

Interest in the green infrastructure of cities has rapidly increased in recent years. The reasons are several but generally relate to the great increase of research and policy on sustainable urban development. Of particular importance here is the more recent shift in this field towards greater emphasis on biodiversity and urban ecosystems and not only climate change and environmental engineering. This shift brings new demands for a deeper understanding of the morphology of green infrastructures in cities, understood as ecological environments and not only as areas for human use, as has been the general case in urban morphology. In an earlier paper (Marcus et al., 2019), we discussed how descriptions of landscape patterns of both urban and natural kinds, as developed in urban morphology and landscape ecology respectively, could be integrated into a joint socio-ecological spatial morphology. That paper outlined a framework for such a morphology where green (and blue) as well as built-up areas in cities can be jointly described as configurations of patches. However, the discussion in that paper does not address how to capture the relation between such configurations and the processes that they structure, or how such processes over time may alter such configurations, which is the aim of the present paper. It does so by extending the theory of generic function (Hillier, 1996) to other species than humans, and by applying the theory of affordances (Gibson, 1986) as a means to develop distance measures specific for different species. The origin of the discussion in both papers is the need for progress in sustainable urban development for which this relation is vital, since if we are to address the function of both urban and ecological systems through spatial form, we need to develop an understanding of how such patterns underpin and structure urban and ecological systems