Polygenic influences associated with adolescent cognitive skills

Genes play an important role in children’s cognitive ability through puberty and into adolescence. Recent advances in genomics has enabled us to test the effect of various genetic predispositions on measured cognitive outcomes. Here, we leveraged summary statistics from the most recent genome-wide association studies of eleven cognitive and mental health traits to build polygenic prediction models of measured intelligence and academic achievement in a cohort of Australian adolescent twins (N=2,335, 57% female). Additionally, we tested the association of these polygenic risk scores (PRS) with core academic skills such as the ability to comprehend, structure and sequence, evaluate and assess, communicate, and apply techniques and procedures. We show that PRSs for educational attainment, intelligence and cognitive factors explained up to 10% of the variance in educational achievement and 7% in intelligence test scores in our cohort. Additionally, we found that a genetic predisposition for ADHD was negatively associated with all cognitive outcomes and skills and a genetic predisposition for schizophrenia was negatively associated with performance IQ but no other cognitive domain. In this study, we show the potential value of genotypic data for predicting pupil achievement and cognitive developmental trajectory through puberty and into adolescence. We provide evidence that a genetic vulnerability to some mental health disorders is associated with poorer cognitive and educational outcomes, regardless of whether the individual has developed the disorder.