Journal article
Genetic contributions to stability and change in intelligence from childhood to old age
IJ Deary, J Yang, G Davies, SE Harris, A Tenesa, D Liewald, M Luciano, LM Lopez, AJ Gow, J Corley, P Redmond, HC Fox, SJ Rowe, P Haggarty, G McNeill, ME Goddard, DJ Porteous, LJ Whalley, JM Starr, PM Visscher
Nature | Published : 2012
DOI: 10.1038/nature10781
Abstract
Understanding the determinants of healthy mental ageing is a priority for society today. So far, we know that intelligence differences show high stability from childhood to old age and there are estimates of the genetic contribution to intelligence at different ages. However, attempts to discover whether genetic causes contribute to differences in cognitive ageing have been relatively uninformative. Here we provide an estimate of the genetic and environmental contributions to stability and change in intelligence across most of the human lifetime. We used genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from 1,940 unrelated individuals whose intelligence was measured in childhood (age 11..
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Awarded by Wellcome Trust
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank the cohort participants who contributed to these studies. Genotyping of the ABC1936, LBC1921 and LBC1936 cohorts and the analyses conducted here were supported by the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Phenotype collection in the LBC1921 was supported by the BBSRC, The Royal Society and The Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government. Phenotype collection in the LBC1936 was supported by Research Into Ageing (continues as part of Age UK's The Disconnected Mind project). Phenotype collection in the ABC1936 was supported by the BBSRC, the Wellcome Trust and the Alzheimer's Research Trust. The Australian-based researchers acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council. M. L. is a Royal Society of Edinburgh/Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Personal Research Fellow. The work was undertaken in The University of Edinburgh Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, part of the cross council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing Initiative (G0700704/84698), for which funding from the BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC and MRC is gratefully acknowledged.