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Holocene selection for variants associated with cognitive ability: Comparing ancient and modern genomes

Michael A. Woodley Menie, Shameem Younuskunja, Balan Bipin, Piffer Davide
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/109678
Michael A. Woodley Menie
1Scientist in Residence, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany
2Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
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  • For correspondence: M.A.Woodley@vub.ac.be
Shameem Younuskunja
3Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, Qatar
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Balan Bipin
4Department of Agriculture and Forestry Science, University of Palermo, Italy
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Piffer Davide
5Department of Psychology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
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ABSTRACT

Human populations living in Eurasia during the Holocene experienced significant evolutionary change. It has been predicted that the transition of Holocene populations into agrarianism and urbanization brought about culture-gene co-evolution that favoured via directional selection genetic variants associated with higher general cognitive ability (GCA). Population expansion and replacement has also been proposed as an important source of GCA gene-frequency change during this time period. To examine whether GCA might have risen during the Holocene, we compare a sample of 99 ancient Eurasian genomes (ranging from 4,557 to 1,208 years of age) with a sample of 503 modern European genomes, using three different cognitive polygenic scores. Significant differences favouring the modern genomes were found for all three polygenic scores (Odds Ratio=0.92, p=0.037; 0.81, p=0.001 and 0.81, p=0.02). Furthermore, a significant increase in positive allele count over 3,249 years was found using a sample of 66 ancient genomes (r=0.217, pone-tailed=0.04). These observations are consistent with the expectation that GCA rose during the Holocene.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted February 21, 2017.
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Holocene selection for variants associated with cognitive ability: Comparing ancient and modern genomes
Michael A. Woodley Menie, Shameem Younuskunja, Balan Bipin, Piffer Davide
bioRxiv 109678; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/109678
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Holocene selection for variants associated with cognitive ability: Comparing ancient and modern genomes
Michael A. Woodley Menie, Shameem Younuskunja, Balan Bipin, Piffer Davide
bioRxiv 109678; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/109678

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