Abstract
There is increasing evidence for the role of rare copy-number variation (CNV) in the development of neuropsychiatric disorders. It is likely that such variants also have an effect on the variation of cognition in what is considered the “normal” phenotypic range. The role of rare CNV (>20 KB in length; frequency <5 %) on general cognitive ability is investigated in a sample of 800 individuals (mean age = 16.5, SD = 1.2) using copy-number variants called from the Illumina 610K SNP genotyping array with the software QuantiSNP. We assessed three measures of CNV burden—total CNV length, number of CNV and average CNV length—for both deletions and duplications in combination and separately. No correlation was found between any of the measures of CNV burden and IQ, or when comparing the top and bottom 10 % of the sample for IQ, both on a genome-wide scale and at individual positions across the genome.
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Acknowledgments
We thank our twin sample for their participation; Marlene Grace and Ann Eldridge for sample collection; Anjali Henders, Megan Campbell, Lisa Bowdler, Steven Crooks, and staff of the QIMR Molecular Epidemiology Laboratory for DNA sample processing and preparation; Kerrie McAloney for study co-ordination; and Harry Beeby, Daniel Park, and David Smyth for IT support. This work was supported by grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC: A7960034, A79906588, A79801419, DP0212016, DP0343921, DP0664638, DP1093900, FT0991360) and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC: Medical Bioinformatics Genomics Proteomics Program, 389891). G.W.M. is supported by the NHMRC Fellowship Scheme (339446, 619667).
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McRae, A.F., Wright, M.J., Hansell, N.K. et al. No Association Between General Cognitive Ability and Rare Copy Number Variation. Behav Genet 43, 202–207 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-013-9587-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-013-9587-9