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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

An Allele-specific Gene Expression Assay to Test the Functional Basis of Genetic Associations
Published on: November 3, 2010
Generalist genes and high cognitive abilities
Claire M A Haworth1, Philip S Dale, Robert Plomin
1Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre P080, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK. Claire.Haworth@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Abstract:
The concept of generalist genes operating across diverse domains of cognitive abilities is now widely accepted. Much less is known about the etiology of the high extreme of performance. Is there more specialization at the high extreme? Using a representative sample of 4,000 12-year-old twin pairs from the UK Twins Early Development Study, we investigated the genetic and environmental overlap between web-based tests of general cognitive ability, reading, mathematics and language performance for the top 15% of the distribution using DF extremes analysis. Generalist genes are just as evident at the high extremes of performance as they are for the entire distribution of abilities and for cognitive disabilities. However, a smaller proportion of the phenotypic intercorrelations appears to be explained by genetic influences for high abilities.
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