Multivariate genetic analysis of personality and cognitive traits reveals abundant pleiotropy.

ABSTRACT: Personality and cognitive function are heritable mental traits whose genetic foundations may be distributed across interconnected brain functions. Previous studies have typically treated these complex mental traits as distinct constructs. We applied the 'pleiotropy-informed' multivariate omnibus statistical test to genome-wide association studies of 35 measures of neuroticism and cognitive function from the UK Biobank (n = 336,993). We identified 431 significantly associated genetic loci with evidence of abundant shared genetic associations, across personality and cognitive function domains. Functional characterization implicated genes with significant tissue-specific expression in all tested brain tissues and brain-specific gene sets. We conditioned independent genome-wide association stu

SUBMITTER: Hindley G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10824266 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature