Evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence
Abstract How well one does at school is predictive of a wide range of important cognitive, socioeconomic, and health outcomes. The last few years have shown marked advancement in our understanding of the genetic contributions to, and correlations with, academic attainment. However, there exists a ga...
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2021-02-01
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doaj-a23db654804949a2b833532c02084feb2021-02-21T12:31:17ZengNature Publishing GroupScientific Reports2045-23222021-02-0111111110.1038/s41598-021-82877-yEvidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescenceGeorgina Donati0Iroise Dumontheil1Oliver Pain2Kathryn Asbury3Emma L. Meaburn4Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of LondonCentre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of LondonSocial Genetic and Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College LondonDepartment of Education, University of YorkCentre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of LondonAbstract How well one does at school is predictive of a wide range of important cognitive, socioeconomic, and health outcomes. The last few years have shown marked advancement in our understanding of the genetic contributions to, and correlations with, academic attainment. However, there exists a gap in our understanding of the specificity of genetic associations with performance in academic subjects during adolescence, a critical developmental period. To address this, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children was used to conduct genome-wide association studies of standardised national English (N = 5983), maths (N = 6017) and science (N = 6089) tests. High SNP-based heritabilities (h2 SNP) for all subjects were found (41–53%). Further, h2 SNP for maths and science remained after removing shared variance between subjects or IQ (N = 3197–5895). One genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphism (rs952964, p = 4.86 × 10–8) and four gene-level associations with science attainment (MEF2C, BRINP1, S100A1 and S100A13) were identified. Rs952964 remained significant after removing the variance shared between academic subjects. The findings highlight the benefits of using environmentally homogeneous samples for genetic analyses and indicate that finer-grained phenotyping will help build more specific biological models of variance in learning processes and abilities.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82877-y |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Georgina Donati Iroise Dumontheil Oliver Pain Kathryn Asbury Emma L. Meaburn |
spellingShingle |
Georgina Donati Iroise Dumontheil Oliver Pain Kathryn Asbury Emma L. Meaburn Evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence Scientific Reports |
author_facet |
Georgina Donati Iroise Dumontheil Oliver Pain Kathryn Asbury Emma L. Meaburn |
author_sort |
Georgina Donati |
title |
Evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence |
title_short |
Evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence |
title_full |
Evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence |
title_fullStr |
Evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence |
title_full_unstemmed |
Evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in English, maths and science during adolescence |
title_sort |
evidence for specificity of polygenic contributions to attainment in english, maths and science during adolescence |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
series |
Scientific Reports |
issn |
2045-2322 |
publishDate |
2021-02-01 |
description |
Abstract How well one does at school is predictive of a wide range of important cognitive, socioeconomic, and health outcomes. The last few years have shown marked advancement in our understanding of the genetic contributions to, and correlations with, academic attainment. However, there exists a gap in our understanding of the specificity of genetic associations with performance in academic subjects during adolescence, a critical developmental period. To address this, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children was used to conduct genome-wide association studies of standardised national English (N = 5983), maths (N = 6017) and science (N = 6089) tests. High SNP-based heritabilities (h2 SNP) for all subjects were found (41–53%). Further, h2 SNP for maths and science remained after removing shared variance between subjects or IQ (N = 3197–5895). One genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphism (rs952964, p = 4.86 × 10–8) and four gene-level associations with science attainment (MEF2C, BRINP1, S100A1 and S100A13) were identified. Rs952964 remained significant after removing the variance shared between academic subjects. The findings highlight the benefits of using environmentally homogeneous samples for genetic analyses and indicate that finer-grained phenotyping will help build more specific biological models of variance in learning processes and abilities. |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82877-y |
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