Centre for Policy on Ageing



The heritability of cognitive functioning in very old adults — evidence from Danish twins aged 75 years and older
Author(s)	Matt McGue, Kaare Christensen
Journal title	Psychology and Aging, vol 16, no 2, June 2001
Pages	pp 272-280
Keywords	Cognitive processes ; Biological ageing ; Twins ; Evaluation ; Denmark.
Annotation	403 same-sex twins (age 75+) from the Longitudinal Study of Ageing Danish Twins (LSADT) completed the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and three other cognitive tests. Genetic factors accounted for 26%-54% of the variance of these measures, with the balance being due to environmental factors that create differences rather than similarities in reared-together relatives. Deleting twins with severe cognitive impairment had little effect on the results, indicating that the heritability of cognitive functioning was not due entirely to genes affecting dementia. Neither age nor gender moderated twin similarity, and differential social contact could not account for correlation differences between monozygotic and dizygotic twins. These results replicate McClearn et al's 1997 study in indicating substantial genetic influences in late-life cognitive functioning. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-020111221 A
Classmark	DA: BH: SVR: 4C: 76K
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.