Recent studies using brain imaging techniques confirmed that the brain develops throughout childhood and young adulthood, and that the various brain structures follow different trajectories of development and maturation (Gogtay et al. 2004; Westlye et al. 2010; Lebel et al. 2012). Since genes influence developmental trajectories, neuroimaging provides a powerful, non-invasive tool to investigate the phenotypic variations during brain development in relation to genetic differences and age or sex-specific gene-expression.
