Genetic variants can predict academic success

A group of 78 researchers led by the Consortium of the Social Science Genetics Association identified 1,271 genetic variations that could be badociated with The extent of education a person would complete.

There was a study earlier a few years ago that pointed to 74 variants. This last study is added to the previous one. The study was published earlier this week in the journal Nature Genetics.

This new study is one of the largest genetic studies with more than one million people. individuals of European descent are included, accounting for more than three times the size of the most recent study conducted in 2016.

According to the author of the study and professor Associate of USC Dornsife's Center for Economic and Social Research, Daniel Benjamin, the total effect of genetic variation is low and this accounts for only 4% of variations in academic achievement.

He explained that the largest genetic variations could predict a difference of about "three more weeks". "When the combined effects of all genetic variations are taken into account, the total duration of a person's formal education can be predicted along with other demographic characteristics," he said. he explained.

For this study, the team of researchers collected UK Biobank Resource with the 23andMe genomic society.They gathered and collected the results of 69 other smaller genetic studies to increase the strength of this study.

Data from 1.1 million participants were collected from 71 datasets and belonged to 15 different countries, most of whom were at least 30 years old.

The researchers explain that there have been several predictors of educational attainment and this includes social factors such as maternal education, socio-economic status, household income, etc. variations were At the educational level, the team of researchers has designed a "polygenic score" that can combine information from a million genetic variations and predict a result.

These 1 million genetic variations included those related to the level of education and also by the team. They discovered, as a result of their study, that just like social and demographic factors, several genes have a strong predictive power. These genes can successfully predict the level of education that an individual would obtain.

Benjamin explained that the previous study has turned out to be true and that it is in itself an important discovery. He however refrained from calling these genes "genes of education" saying that it would be "misleading". He emphasized the effectiveness of the polygenic score by saying that it can successfully combine the effects of a large number of genetic variants.

Peter Visscher, lead author and professor at the University of Queensland explained that these genetic variants have been seen to influence almost all stages of brain development and also in neurological connections in the brain. They noted that there are several genetic variants on the X chromosome that have shown that there are similar genetic variations between men and women.

This also means that there are no genetic differences between the bades in the differences between the levels of education. Benjamin said that there are several other genetic variations that need to be explored. These can only be evaluated with larger populations of participants, he explained.