Advances in large‐scale neuroimaging studies have allowed the characterization of distinct group differences in the macroscopic structure of the cerebral cortex, across several psychiatric disorders (Thompson et al., 2019). Using a new bioinformatics approach, named virtual histology, we can now link these macroscopic differences with microscopic histological features within the human cerebral cortex (Patel, Shin, Gowland, Pausova, & Paus, 2018; Shin et al., 2018). In brief, virtual histology relates variation in cell‐specific gene expression profiles across the 34 regions of the Desikan‐Killiany atlas with profiles of group differences in cortical thickness across the same 34 regions (Desikan et al., 2006). This approach combines gene expression data from the Allen Human Brain Atlas (Hawrylycz et al., 2012), and cell‐specific markers from single‐cell RNA sequencing (Zeisel et al., 2015) with MRI derived measures. Profiles of group differences in cortical thickness are generated using a meta‐analytic approach for each of six major psychiatric disorders (ASD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, OCD, and schizophrenia). Currently, there are 12,006 cases and 14,842 controls contributing to these profiles. The goal of the project is to
