Thread: Scientists link gene to intelligence

A research team led by a University of Utah neuroscientist has identified a gene whose expression can be linked to intelligence.

Science has suspected that human intelligence is largely genetic, but how specific genes affect cognitive ability has remained a puzzle, one that Julie Korenberg is hoping to unlock.

She and colleagues at California institutions performed genetic testing on 65 patients with Williams Syndrome, an uncommon congenital developmental disorder that appears in only one in 20,000 births. People with the syndrome are genetically similar to other individuals except they are missing 27 genes.

"Sometimes rare events can illuminate everyday processes. In the case of Williams Syndrome, we know the genetic changes that lets us hone in on less than 1,000th of the genes. We can ask when that gene changes, does that change their IQ?," said Korenberg, a pediatrician who came to the U. two years ago to work with the Utah Science, Technology and Research initiative (USTAR) and the U.'s Brain Institute.

Williams Syndrome patients have IQs around 60. They are verbal and social, but are challenged by numbers, memory and spatial perception.

Korenberg's team studied 10 genes, but the one that jumped out was STX1A, which helps control electrochemical processes at the synapses, the junction between nerve cells. It can account for 15.6 percent of variation in cognitive function, according to findings published Wednesday in the on-line journal PLoS ONE.

"This was an exciting finding because it connects genes and the brain, which is one of the major problems of modern medicine," said Korenberg, the study's senior author. "It could provide new insights into how we think. It could provide the basis for improving the thinking power of people with retardation in children or people who are losing cognitive function."

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U. scientist links one gene to intelligence - Salt Lake Tribune

It'll be interesting to watch how this research progresses, especially vis a vis people with mental disabilities.

Of course this will immediately be misused.
The information shows radical difference, like from retarded to normal. This doesn't say anything about what separates normal from intelligent to genius... just what lays the foundation for intelligence.
Someone will misuse this to claim that IQ is gene-based and send us right back to the pseudo-scientific "Bell Curve" argument.
I can almost guarantee it.
So we have to make note of what this actually says as an innoculation against the genetic determinism to follow.

Originally Posted by JavaBlack

Of course this will immediately be misused.
The information shows radical difference, like from retarded to normal. This doesn't say anything about what separates normal from intelligent to genius... just what lays the foundation for intelligence.
Someone will misuse this to claim that IQ is gene-based and send us right back to the pseudo-scientific "Bell Curve" argument.
I can almost guarantee it.
So we have to make note of what this actually says as an innoculation against the genetic determinism to follow.

Yes, similar thoughts had crossed my mind. Scientists have to be careful that this sort of research doesn't lead to more social darwinism.

Originally Posted by AgentM

Yes, similar thoughts had crossed my mind. Scientists have to be careful that this sort of research doesn't lead to more social darwinism.

There's only so much they can do.
The problem is that science reaches the public through sensationalist headlines and political pundits...
and it usually doesn't look quite like what it started as by then.

It seems to me that it's a big stretch from saying that people who lack a certain gene lack normal intelligence, to being able to say that all of the types of human intelligence are linked to genes.

But, it is an interesting bit of research.

Originally Posted by Dittohead not

It seems to me that it's a big stretch from saying that people who lack a certain gene lack normal intelligence, to being able to say that all of the types of human intelligence are linked to genes.

But, it is an interesting bit of research.

I think that this particular gene is just one factor out of many, but still it's worth looking at.

Originally Posted by AgentM

I think that this particular gene is just one factor out of many, but still it's worth looking at.

Perhaps it could settle the nature vs nurture debate. How much of intelligence is due to our genes, and how much to our environment? No one really knows the answer to that one.

Originally Posted by Dittohead not

Perhaps it could settle the nature vs nurture debate. How much of intelligence is due to our genes, and how much to our environment? No one really knows the answer to that one.

Yeah, I don't think that'll fully be settled for a long time, if ever. But we can inch our way closer to the truth.

Originally Posted by Dittohead not

Perhaps it could settle the nature vs nurture debate. How much of intelligence is due to our genes, and how much to our environment? No one really knows the answer to that one.

Keep in mind also that this data says absolutely nothing about variation in intelligence, which has already been at least strongly linked to nutrition, well-being, and some social factors.
A gene that separates human intelligence from animal intelligence does not necessarily have any bearing on what separates Einstein from Sarah Palin.

That's the kind of jump we have to watch out for.
We know genes are not fully responsible for variation in intelligence because we have found some causal effects (as well as flaws in the IQ measures: cultural literacy and the fact that scores over 130 bear little if any meaning).

Really this article is not surprising when you consider what it says.
It's not shocking that a gene determines why humans (even dumb people, provided they don't have a severe disorder) have certain mental capacities at all.
What the interesting part is is that they actually managed to link one.