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No Observable Relationship Between the 12 Genes of Nervous System and Reasoning Skill in a Young Chinese Han Population

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Abstract

Reasoning skill is an advanced cognitive ability which is needed for drawing inferences from given information. It is well known that the ability depends on the neural network of the frontal and parietal brain regions. In this study, we hypothesized that some genes involved in neurotransmitter systems were related to reasoning skill. To confirm this hypothesis, we examined the effects of 13 genes (BDNF, NRSF, COMT, DBH, DRD 2 , DRD 3 , DAT 1 , MAOA, GRM 1, GRIN2B, TPH 2 , 5-HT 2A , and 5-HT 6 ) in neurotransmitter systems on the non-verbal reasoning and verbal reasoning skills. The results indicated there were on significant effects of the 17 functional variants of these genes on the performance of non-verbal reasoning and verbal analogical reasoning skills (χ2 > 3.84, df = 1, P > 0.05). This study suggests that some of the functional variations in BDNF, COMT, DBH, DRD 2 , DRD 3 , MAOA, 5-HT 2A , 5-HT 6 , GRM 1 , and GRIN2B have no observable effects on the certain reasoning skills in a young healthy Chinese Han population.

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Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank all the participants and researchers in this study. This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.30970967) and Special Prophase Project on Basic Research of the National Department of Science and Technology (2007CB516702).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China (Ministry of Education), College of Life Science, Institute of Population and Health, Xi’an, 710069, China

    Pingyuan Gong, Fuchang Zhang, Xu Lei, Dongmei Chen, Kejin Zhang & Xiaocai Gao

  2. School of Life Science, Institute of Application Psychology, Northwest University, 229 Tai Bai Road, Xi’an, 710069, China

    Fuchang Zhang, Xiaodong Wu, Wenjiang Zhang & Anyun Zheng

  3. College of Medicine, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang, 471003, China

    Pingyuan Gong

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  1. Pingyuan Gong
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  2. Fuchang Zhang
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  4. Xiaodong Wu
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  9. Xiaocai Gao
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Correspondence to Fuchang Zhang.

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Gong, P., Zhang, F., Lei, X. et al. No Observable Relationship Between the 12 Genes of Nervous System and Reasoning Skill in a Young Chinese Han Population. Cell Mol Neurobiol 31, 519–526 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10571-010-9645-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10571-010-9645-2

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