Compared to previous studies that examined the transcriptional profiles associated with age- or psychopathology-related cortical changes [9, 59–61], we adopted spatial null models that have been shown to be essential in controlling false-positive rates when annotating the transcriptional correlations with imaging-derived phenotypes [40]. The transcriptional analysis of the spatial pattern of PC1 provided novel insights into the commonality among psychiatric disorders as well as their possible neurodevelopmental origins. For example, the transcriptional analysis revealed that several KCN family genes (e.g., KCNA2, KCNS1, KCNS2) showed significant spatial correlations with PC1. The GCEA identified multiple GO categories of potassium ion channels (e.g., voltage-gated potassium channel activity) that were related to the transcriptional correlations of PC1. The disrupted functions of potassium channels have been linked to various psychiatric, neurodegenerative disorders and substance use disorders [14, 53–56]. Some potassium channel genes have been considered candidate markers for SCZ and BD [54, 56], and it has been shown that loci within the KCN family genes (i.e., KCNB2) are pleiotropic to several psychiatric disorders [14]. Interestingly, transcriptional correlations of PC1 were found enriched to the developmental
