“The effects of these SNPs are weighed by the strength of association and then summed to a score, so that people with many SNPs related to academic achievement will have a higher polygenic score and higher academic achievement.”
The polygenic score method, developed by scientists at King’s College London and published recently in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, is the strongest ever prediction of academic achievement using genetic data only.
Specifically, scientists completed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 10 million SNPs from 5,825 unrelated individuals from the Twins Early Development Study. Using the polygenic score method, they measured the academic achievement of young students aged 7, 12, and 16 in mathematics and in English. The study resulted in the discovery of 74 gene variants significantly associated with academic achievement, with “years of education” used as a measure for achievement and related traits.
Based on whether their polygenic score was high or low, scientists quickly saw after analyzing results that a child’s score strongly influenced their average chance of receiving a “good” grade (A or B) versus a “bad” grade (a full letter grade below). While 65 percent of children receiving polygenic scores considered to be high went on to make mostly “A” letter grades, only 35 percent of the children in lower score group made these grades.
“We believe that, very soon, polygenic scores will be used to identify individuals who are at greater risk of having learning difficulties,” said first author Saskia Selzam from the MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Center at King’s College London, summarizing the end goal of completing this study and designing the new polygenic score method.
Scientists from King’s College London believe their findings to be a “tipping point” in predicting academic achievement, including the new ability of school officials to pinpoint children who might have trouble in school in the future and intervene to improve the situation. “Personalized support of this nature could help to prevent later developmental difficulties,” said senior author Robert Plomin.
Source: King’s College London