Common DNA Markers Can Account for More Than Half of the Genetic Influence on Cognitive Abilities

Robert Plomin*, Claire M A Haworth, Emma L. Meaburn, Thomas S. Price, Oliver S P Davis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

105 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

For nearly a century, twin and adoption studies have yielded substantial estimates of heritability for cognitive abilities, although it has proved difficult for genomewide-association studies to identify the genetic variants that account for this heritability (i.e., the missing-heritability problem). However, a new approach, genomewide complex-trait analysis (GCTA), forgoes the identification of individual variants to estimate the total heritability captured by common DNA markers on genotyping arrays. In the same sample of 3,154 pairs of 12-year-old twins, we directly compared twin-study heritability estimates for cognitive abilities (language, verbal, nonverbal, and general) with GCTA estimates captured by 1.7 million DNA markers. We found that DNA markers tagged by the array accounted for.66 of the estimated heritability, reaffirming that cognitive abilities are heritable. Larger sample sizes alone will be sufficient to identify many of the genetic variants that influence cognitive abilities.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)562-568
Number of pages7
JournalPsychological Science
Volume24
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Apr 2013

Keywords

  • behavioral genetics
  • cognitive ability
  • cognitive development
  • genetics

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