A Dopaminergic Gene Cluster in the Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Performance Indicative of General Intelligence in Genetically Heterogeneous Mice

Stefan Kolata, Kenneth Light, Christopher D Wass, Danielle Colas-Zelin, Debasri Roy and Louis D Matzel

PLOS ONE, 2010, vol. 5, issue 11, 1-10

Abstract: Background: Genetically heterogeneous mice express a trait that is qualitatively and psychometrically analogous to general intelligence in humans, and as in humans, this trait co-varies with the processing efficacy of working memory (including its dependence on selective attention). Dopamine signaling in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has been established to play a critical role in animals' performance in both working memory and selective attention tasks. Owing to this role of the PFC in the regulation of working memory, here we compared PFC gene expression profiles of 60 genetically diverse CD-1 mice that exhibited a wide range of general learning abilities (i.e., aggregate performance across five diverse learning tasks). Methodology/Principal Findings: Animals' general cognitive abilities were first determined based on their aggregate performance across a battery of five diverse learning tasks. With a procedure designed to minimize false positive identifications, analysis of gene expression microarrays (comprised of ≈25,000 genes) identified a small number (

Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0014036

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014036

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