RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Genetic contributions to trail making test performance in UK Biobank
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 103119
DO 10.1101/103119
A1 Saskia P Hagenaars
A1 Simon R Cox
A1 W David Hill
A1 Gail Davies
A1 David CM Liewald
A1 CHARGE consortium Cognitive Working Group
A1 Sarah E Harris
A1 Andrew M McIntosh
A1 Catharine R Gale
A1 Ian J Deary
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/25/103119.abstract
AB The Trail Making Test is a widely used test of executive function and has been thought to be strongly associated with general cognitive function. We examined the genetic architecture of the trail making test and its shared genetic aetiology with other tests of cognitive function in 23 821 participants from UK Biobank. The SNP-based heritability estimates for trail-making measures were 7.9 % (part A), 22.4 % (part B), and 17.6 % (part B – part A). Significant genetic correlations were identified between trail-making measures and verbal-numerical reasoning (rg > 0.6), general cognitive function (rg > 0.6), processing speed (rg > 0.7), and memory (rg > 0.3). Polygenic profile analysis indicated considerable shared genetic aetiology between trail making, general cognitive function, processing speed, and memory (standardized β between 0.03 and 0.08). These results suggest that trail making is both phenotypically and genetically strongly associated with general cognitive function and processing speed.