Journal article
Genetic influences on five measures of processing speed and their covariation with general cognitive ability in the elderly: The older Australian twins study
T Lee, MA Mosing, JD Henry, JN Trollor, A Lammel, D Ames, NG Martin, MJ Wright, PS Sachdev
Behavior Genetics | Published : 2012
Abstract
Processing speed (PS) is one of the basic elements of cognitive functions and has been regarded as a "common mechanism" which mediates general cognitive decline in aging. The present study of Australian twins (117 monozygotic pairs, 98 dizygotic pairs, and 42 single twins aged 65 years and over), estimated the genetic influences in five measures of PS: Digit Symbol Coding (DS), Trail Making Test A (TMTA), Stroop color naming and word reading (Stroop), Simple Reaction Time (SRT) and Complex Reaction Time (CRT); and their covariation with general cognitive ability (GCA): reasoning, problem-solving, and memory. Additive genetic factors explained 62% of the variance in DS, 42% in TMTA, 57% in St..
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Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (ID 401162), and was facilitated with access to the Australian Twin Registry, a national research resource supported by an Enabling Grant (ID 310667) from the National Health & Medical Research Council, and administered by The University of Melbourne. We thank the OATS research team in New South Wales (Pamela Azar, John Crawford, Fiona Kumfor, Alissa Nichles, Alison Walker), Queensland (Harry Beeby, Anthony Caracella, Natalie Garden, Anjali Henders, Clare Redfern, Amanda Toivanen), and Victoria (Nicholas Cortes, Christel Lemmon, Simone Mangelsdorf, Gihan de Mel, Tabaitha Nash, Stacey Walker) for their contributions to this study. Most of all, we thank the twins and their families for their participation.