Polygenic influences associated with adolescent cognitive skills

Brittany L. Mitchell, Narelle K. Hansell, Kerrie McAloney, Nicholas G. Martin, Margaret J. Wright, Miguel E. Renteria and Katrina L. Grasby

Intelligence, 2022, vol. 94, issue C

Abstract: Genes play an important role in children's cognitive ability through adolescence and into adulthood. Recent advances in genomics have enabled us to test the effect of various genetic predispositions on measured cognitive outcomes. Here, we leveraged summary statistics from the most recent genome-wide association studies of eleven cognitive and mental health traits to build polygenic prediction models of measured intelligence and academic skills in a cohort of Australian adolescent twins (N = 2335, 57% female). We show that polygenic risk scores for educational attainment, intelligence, and cognitive performance explained up to 10% of the variance in academic skills and 7% in intelligence test scores in our cohort. Additionally, we found that a genetic predisposition for ADHD was negatively associated with all cognitive measures and a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia was negatively associated with performance IQ but no other cognitive measure. In this study, we provide evidence that a genetic vulnerability to some mental health disorders is associated with poorer performance on a variety of cognitive and academic tests, regardless of whether the individual has developed the disorder.

Keywords: Polygenic risk scores; Education; Cognition; Mental health; Genetics; Adolescence; Intelligence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intell:v:94:y:2022:i:c:s0160289622000617

DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2022.101680

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