About BIG-KP
This knowledge portal provides a platform for accelerating genetic discoveries in the human brain.
News: 📄 View BIG-S2 Lab 2025 Annual Report ↗
Publicly available resources
An interactive GWAS browser built on PheWeb2 covering 2,104 neuroimaging traits from the UK Biobank British cohort (~34,000 subjects). Search any trait to explore Manhattan plots, top variants, and gene-level results.
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Full summary statistics freely available for download across all major trait categories.
Voxel-level GWAS for 8 subcortical brain regions via the HEIG pipeline, summarized into Lower Dimensional Representations.
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Questions or comments? Contact Bingxin Zhao or Hongtu Zhu.
Recent Highlights
Inferring multi-organ genetic connections using imaging and clinical data through Mendelian randomization
Read paper →Computation and resource efficient genome-wide association analysis for large-scale imaging studies
Read paper →Mapping rare protein-coding variants on multi-organ imaging traits
Read paper →Eye-brain connections revealed by multimodal retinal and brain imaging genetics
Read paper →Heart-brain connections: phenotypic and genetic insights from magnetic resonance images
Read paper →Data Sources
We have consistently analyzed genetics and neuroimaging data of more than 50,000 subjects from
News: we have a newly-built twin website that covers imaging traits for the heart http://Heartkp.org.
Publications (2018+)
Mapping rare protein-coding variants on multi-organ imaging traits
Nature Communications, 2025
Read PaperInferring multi-organ genetic connections using imaging and clinical data through Mendelian randomization
Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2025
Read PaperComputation and resource efficient genome-wide association analysis for large-scale imaging studies
Nature Communications, 2025
Read PaperEye-brain connections revealed by multimodal retinal and brain imaging genetics
Nature Communications, 15, 6064, 2024,
Read PaperThe pivotal role of the X-chromosome in the genetic architecture of the human brain
Science Advances, 2024
Read PaperHeart-brain connections: Phenotypic and genetic insights from magnetic resonance images
Science, 380, abn6598, 2023
Read PaperGenetic influences on the shape of brain ventricular and subcortical structures
medRxiv, 22279691, 2022
Read PaperCommon variants contribute to intrinsic human brain function networks
Nature Genetics, 2022
Read PaperGenetic influences on the intrinsic and extrinsic functional organizations of the cerebral cortex
medRxiv, 21261187, 2021
Read PaperCommon genetic variation influencing human white matter microstructure
Science, 372-6548, 2021
Read PaperTranscriptome-wide association analysis of brain structures yields insights into pleiotropy with complex neuropsychiatric traits
Nature Communications, 842872, 2021
Read PaperGenome-wide association analysis of 19,629 individuals identifies variants influencing regional brain volumes and refines their genetic co-architecture with cognitive and mental health traits
Nature Genetics, 51(11), 1637-1644, 2019
Read PaperLarge-scale GWAS reveals genetic architecture of brain white matter microstructure and genetic overlap with cognitive and mental health traits (n=17,706)
Molecular Psychiatry, 2019
Read PaperHeritability of regional brain volumes in large-scale neuroimaging and genetic studies
Cerebral Cortex, 29(7), 2904-2914, 2018
Read Paper