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Gene variation affecting grey matter thickness influences intelligence
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Agatha Christie’s famous fictional detective Hercule Poirot was fond of ascribing his formidable intelligence to his ‘little grey cells’. A new study from an international team of scientists, led by a group in King’s College London, UK, suggests that he may have been partly right. These researchers have identified a gene which links thickness of the ‘grey matter’, i.e. the cerebral cortex which forms the outermost layer of the human brain, to intelligence. The study, published in today’s Molecular Psychiatry may shed light on the biological mechanisms underlying some forms of intellectual impairment.

The study describes the results of analysis of DNA samples and MRI brain scans from 1,583 healthy 14 year old teenagers, part of the IMAGEN cohort. The MRI and DNA results were correlated with the results of tests to determine their verbal and non-verbal intelligence. According to Dr Sylvane Desrivières, from King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry and lead author of the study, the object was to "find out how structural differences in the brain relate to differences in intellectual ability. The genetic variation we identified is linked to synaptic plasticity – how neurons communicate. This may help us understand what happens at a neuronal level in certain forms of intellectual impairments, where the ability of the neurons to communicate effectively is somehow compromised." Dr Desrivières cautioned that the gene identified in the study “explains a tiny proportion of the differences in intellectual ability, so it's by no means a 'gene for intelligence'."

The gene variation identified, from a genetic detective exercise involving examination of over 54,000 genetic variants possibly involved in brain development, was in the NPTN gene. This gene encodes the synaptic cell adhesion glycoprotein neuroplastin, which filled the criterion of influencing how neurons communicate. The study results showed that in participants who carried the particular gene variant, there was a thinner cortex in the left cerebral hemisphere, particularly in the frontal and temporal lobes. Importantly, these participants also had lower performance on the intelligence tests.

To extend and confirm these findings, the researchers carried out analysis of the NPTN gene both in mouse and human brain cells. Results indicated differential NPTN activity in the left versus the right brain hemispheres. The impact of these differences would result in the left hemisphere being more sensitive to NPTN mutation than the right. The findings suggest that reduction of NPTN function in the left hemisphere of the brain may contribute to compromising of intellectual ability. While this NPTN variation would account for no more than approximately 0.5% of variation in intelligence, it could still have major implications for beginning to tease out the biological mechanisms behind diseases featuring cognitive impairment, including schizophrenia and autism.

Sources
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2...021014.php [Accessed 11 February 2014].

Desrivières, S. et al., 2014. Single nucleotide polymorphism in the neuroplastin locus associates with cortical thickness and intellectual ability in adolescents. Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication 11 February 2014; doi: 10.1038/mp.2013.197
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