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Gene, environment and cognitive function: a Chinese twin ageing study.
- Source :
-
Age and ageing [Age Ageing] 2015 May; Vol. 44 (3), pp. 452-7. Date of Electronic Publication: 2015 Apr 01. - Publication Year :
- 2015
-
Abstract
- Background: the genetic and environmental contributions to cognitive function in the old people have been well addressed for the Western populations using twin modelling showing moderate to high heritability. No similar study has been conducted in the world largest and rapidly ageing Chinese population living under distinct environmental condition as the Western populations.<br />Objective: this study aims to explore the genetic and environmental impact on normal cognitive ageing in the Chinese twins.<br />Design/setting: cognitive function was measured on 384 complete twin pairs with median age of 50 years for seven cognitive measurements including visuospatial, linguistic skills, naming, memory, attention, abstraction and orientation abilities. Data were analysed by fitting univariate and bivariate twin models to estimate the genetic and environmental components in the variance and co-variance of the cognitive assessments.<br />Results: intra-pair correlation on cognitive measurements was low to moderate in monozygotic twins (0.23-0.41, overall 0.42) and low in dizygotic twins (0.05-0.30, overall 0.31) with the former higher than the latter for each item. Estimate for heritability was moderate for overall cognitive function (0.44, 95% CI: 0.34-0.53) and low to moderate for visuospatial, naming, attention and orientation abilities ranging from 0.28 to 0.38. No genetic contribution was estimated to linguistic skill, abstraction and memory which instead were under low to moderate control by shared environmental factors accounting for 23-33% of the total variances. In contrast, all cognitive performances showed moderate to high influences by the unique environmental factors.<br />Conclusions: genetic factor and common family environment have a limited contribution to cognitive function in the Chinese adults. Individual unique environment is likely to play a major role in determining the levels of cognitive performance.<br /> (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)
- Subjects :
- Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging physiology
Aging psychology
China epidemiology
Female
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Neuropsychological Tests
Twins genetics
Twins psychology
Twins, Dizygotic statistics & numerical data
Twins, Monozygotic statistics & numerical data
Aging genetics
Cognition physiology
Gene-Environment Interaction
Twins statistics & numerical data
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1468-2834
- Volume :
- 44
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Age and ageing
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 25833745
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afv015