Human cognition in normal and disease states is both environmentally and genetically mediated. Except for measures of language-specific abilities, however, few cognitive measures have been associated with specific genes or chromosomal regions. We performed genome-wide linkage analysis of five neuropsychological tests in the Collaborative Study on Genetics of Alcoholism sample. The sample included 1579 individuals (53% female, 76% White Non-Hispanic) in 217 families. There were 390 markers with mean intermarker distance of 9.6 cM. Performance on the Digit Symbol Substitution Test, a component of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-R, showed significant linkage to 14q11.2 and suggestive linkage to 14q24.2. This test of sustained visual attention also involves visual-motor coordination and executive functions. Performance on the WAIS-R Digit Span Test of immediate memory and mental flexibility showed suggestive linkage to 11q25. Although the validity of these results beyond populations with a susceptibility for alcohol dependence is unclear, these results are among the first linkage results for non-language components of cognition.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Chunsheng He and Xiangyang Kong for computational assistance, William G. Johnson for background information, and Ann Jurecic for editorial assistance. Data were provided by the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (U10AA008401). This work was supported by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (S.B., M.E.B., J.A.T., P.M.) and the National Institute of Mental Health (S.B., N.G., T.C.M., and J.A.T.).
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Buyske, S., Bates, M.E., Gharani, N. et al. Cognitive Traits Link to Human Chromosomal Regions. Behav Genet 36, 65–76 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-005-9008-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-005-9008-9