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Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence

High intelligence (general cognitive ability) is fundamental to the human capital that drives societies in the information age. Understanding the origins of this intellectual capital is important for government policy, for neuroscience, and for genetics. For genetics, a key question is whether the g...

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Autores principales: Shakeshaft, Nicholas G., Trzaskowski, Maciej, McMillan, Andrew, Krapohl, Eva, Simpson, Michael A., Reichenberg, Avi, Cederlöf, Martin, Larsson, Henrik, Lichtenstein, Paul, Plomin, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4286575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25593376
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2014.11.005
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author Shakeshaft, Nicholas G.
Trzaskowski, Maciej
McMillan, Andrew
Krapohl, Eva
Simpson, Michael A.
Reichenberg, Avi
Cederlöf, Martin
Larsson, Henrik
Lichtenstein, Paul
Plomin, Robert
author_facet Shakeshaft, Nicholas G.
Trzaskowski, Maciej
McMillan, Andrew
Krapohl, Eva
Simpson, Michael A.
Reichenberg, Avi
Cederlöf, Martin
Larsson, Henrik
Lichtenstein, Paul
Plomin, Robert
author_sort Shakeshaft, Nicholas G.
collection PubMed
description High intelligence (general cognitive ability) is fundamental to the human capital that drives societies in the information age. Understanding the origins of this intellectual capital is important for government policy, for neuroscience, and for genetics. For genetics, a key question is whether the genetic causes of high intelligence are qualitatively or quantitatively different from the normal distribution of intelligence. We report results from a sibling and twin study of high intelligence and its links with the normal distribution. We identified 360,000 sibling pairs and 9000 twin pairs from 3 million 18-year-old males with cognitive assessments administered as part of conscription to military service in Sweden between 1968 and 2010. We found that high intelligence is familial, heritable, and caused by the same genetic and environmental factors responsible for the normal distribution of intelligence. High intelligence is a good candidate for “positive genetics” — going beyond the negative effects of DNA sequence variation on disease and disorders to consider the positive end of the distribution of genetic effects.
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spelling pubmed-42865752015-01-13 Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence Shakeshaft, Nicholas G. Trzaskowski, Maciej McMillan, Andrew Krapohl, Eva Simpson, Michael A. Reichenberg, Avi Cederlöf, Martin Larsson, Henrik Lichtenstein, Paul Plomin, Robert Intelligence Article High intelligence (general cognitive ability) is fundamental to the human capital that drives societies in the information age. Understanding the origins of this intellectual capital is important for government policy, for neuroscience, and for genetics. For genetics, a key question is whether the genetic causes of high intelligence are qualitatively or quantitatively different from the normal distribution of intelligence. We report results from a sibling and twin study of high intelligence and its links with the normal distribution. We identified 360,000 sibling pairs and 9000 twin pairs from 3 million 18-year-old males with cognitive assessments administered as part of conscription to military service in Sweden between 1968 and 2010. We found that high intelligence is familial, heritable, and caused by the same genetic and environmental factors responsible for the normal distribution of intelligence. High intelligence is a good candidate for “positive genetics” — going beyond the negative effects of DNA sequence variation on disease and disorders to consider the positive end of the distribution of genetic effects. Elsevier 2015-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4286575/ /pubmed/25593376 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2014.11.005 Text en © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Shakeshaft, Nicholas G.
Trzaskowski, Maciej
McMillan, Andrew
Krapohl, Eva
Simpson, Michael A.
Reichenberg, Avi
Cederlöf, Martin
Larsson, Henrik
Lichtenstein, Paul
Plomin, Robert
Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence
title Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence
title_full Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence
title_fullStr Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence
title_full_unstemmed Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence
title_short Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence
title_sort thinking positively: the genetics of high intelligence
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4286575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25593376
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2014.11.005
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