title: Predicting educational achievement from DNA.
abstract: A genome-wide polygenic score (GPS), derived from a 2013 genome-wide association study (N=127,000), explained 2% of the variance in total years of education (EduYears). In a follow-up study (N=329,000), a new EduYears GPS explains up to 4%. Here, we tested the association between this latest EduYears GPS and educational achievement scores at ages 7, 12 and 16 in an independent sample of 5825 UK individuals. We found that EduYears GPS explained greater amounts of variance in educational achievement over time, up to 9% at age 16, accounting for 15% of the heritable variance. This is the strongest GPS prediction to date for quantitative behavioral traits. Individuals in the highest and lowest GPS septiles differed by a whole school grade at age 16. Furthermore, EduYears GPS was associated with general cognitive ability (~3.5%) and family socioeconomic status (~7%). There was no evidence of an interaction between EduYears GPS and family socioeconomic status on educational achievement or on general cognitive ability. These results are a harbinger of future widespread use of GPS to predict genetic risk and resilience in the social and behavioral sciences.
authors.affiliation: King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Selzam
authors.affiliation: King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Krapohl
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London, London, UK.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: von Stumm
authors.affiliation: King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK.
authors.forename: P F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: O'Reilly
authors.affiliation: King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rimfeld
authors.affiliation: King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK.|Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London, London, UK.|Laboratory for Cognitive Investigations and Behavioural Genetics, Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kovas
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
authors.forename: P S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Plomin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005820:Genetic Testing / Q000379:methods; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D020412:Multifactorial Inheritance / Q000235:genetics; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics; D012923:Social Class; D006113:United Kingdom