Crystallized and fluid cognitive abilities have different genetic associations with neuropsychiatric disorders

Previous research on the genetic links between cognition and psychopathology has largely treated cognitive function as unitary, in part due to a lack of well-powered genome-wide association studies on specific cognitive domains, particularly crystallized knowledge (also known as crystallized intelligence). Here, we parse the genetics of cognitive test performance into components representing reaction time, fluid reasoning, and crystallized knowledge. This multivariate approach allows us to report results from a genome-wide association study meta-analysis of crystallized knowledge (N ~ 439,000). We report that multiple neuropsychiatric disorders (Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Alzheimer's Disease) are also genetically correlated with these three cognitive domains, and with a non-cognitive factor associated with educational attainment, with genetic correlations differing in both magnitude and direction depending on the specific domain and disorder. Neuropsychiatric disorders show specific and heterogeneous patterns of genetic associations with different domains of cognitive and noncognitive function.