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Adolescent Verbal Memory as a Psychosis Endophenotype: A Genome-Wide Association Study in an Ancestrally Diverse Sample

Authors :
Baihan Wang
Olga Giannakopoulou
Isabelle Austin-Zimmerman
Haritz Irizar
Jasmine Harju-Seppänen
Eirini Zartaloudi
Anjali Bhat
Andrew McQuillin
Karoline Kuchenbäcker
Elvira Bramon
Source :
Genes; Volume 13; Issue 1; Pages: 106, Genes, Genes, Vol 13, Iss 106, p 106 (2022)
Publication Year :
2022
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2022.

Abstract

Verbal memory impairment is one of the most prominent cognitive deficits in psychosis. However, few studies have investigated the genetic basis of verbal memory in a neurodevelopmental context, and most genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been conducted in European-ancestry populations. We conducted a GWAS on verbal memory in a maximum of 11,017 participants aged 8.9 to 11.1 years in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study®, recruited from a diverse population in the United States. Verbal memory was assessed by the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, which included three measures of verbal memory: immediate recall, short-delay recall, and long-delay recall. We adopted a mixed-model approach to perform a joint GWAS of all participants, adjusting for ancestral background and familial relatedness. The inclusion of participants from all ancestries increased the power of the GWAS. Two novel genome-wide significant associations were found for short-delay and long-delay recall verbal memory. In particular, one locus (rs9896243) associated with long-delay recall was mapped to the NSF (N-Ethylmaleimide Sensitive Factor, Vesicle Fusing ATPase) gene, indicating the role of membrane fusion in adolescent verbal memory. Based on the GWAS in the European subset, we estimated the SNP-heritability to be 15% to 29% for the three verbal memory traits. We found that verbal memory was genetically correlated with schizophrenia, providing further evidence supporting verbal memory as an endophenotype for psychosis.

Details

ISSN :
20734425
Volume :
13
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Genes
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....af80b3f0b722bb9707844b552ee47f85
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/genes13010106