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Causal associations of intelligence with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: A Mendelian randomization analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2021

Kazutaka Ohi*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Gifu University Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu, Japan Department of General Internal Medicine, Kanazawa Medical University, Ishikawa, Japan
Kentaro Takai
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Gifu University Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu, Japan
Ayumi Kuramitsu
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Gifu University Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu, Japan
Shunsuke Sugiyama
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Gifu University Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu, Japan
Midori Soda
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Pharmaceutics, Department of Biomedical Pharmaceutics, Gifu Pharmaceutical University, Gifu, Japan
Kiyoyuki Kitaichi
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Pharmaceutics, Department of Biomedical Pharmaceutics, Gifu Pharmaceutical University, Gifu, Japan
Toshiki Shioiri
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Gifu University Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu, Japan
*
Author for correspondence: *Kazutaka Ohi, E-mail: k_ohi@gifu-u.ac.jp

Abstract

Background

Intelligence is inversely associated with schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD); it remains unclear whether low intelligence is a cause or consequence. We investigated causal associations of intelligence with SCZ or BD risk and a shared risk between SCZ and BD and SCZ-specific risk.

Methods

To estimate putative causal associations, we performed multi-single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) Mendelian randomization (MR) using generalized summary-data-based MR (GSMR). Summary-level datasets from five GWASs (intelligence, SCZ vs. control [CON], BD vs. CON, SCZ + BD vs. CON, and SCZ vs. BD; sample sizes of up to 269,867) were utilized.

Results

A strong bidirectional association between risks for SCZ and BD was observed (odds ratio; ORSCZ → BD = 1.47, p = 2.89 × 10−41, ORBD → SCZ = 1.44, p = 1.85 × 10−52). Low intelligence was bidirectionally associated with a high risk for SCZ, with a stronger effect of intelligence on SCZ risk (ORlower intelligence → SCZ = 1.62, p = 3.23 × 10−14) than the reverse (ORSCZ → lower intelligence = 1.06, p = 3.70 × 10−23). Furthermore, low intelligence affected a shared risk between SCZ and BD (OR lower intelligence → SCZ + BD = 1.23, p = 3.41 × 10−5) and SCZ-specific risk (ORlower intelligence → SCZvsBD = 1.64, p = 9.72 × 10−10); the shared risk (ORSCZ + BD → lower intelligence = 1.04, p = 3.09 × 10−14) but not SCZ-specific risk (ORSCZvsBD → lower intelligence = 1.00, p = 0.88) weakly affected low intelligence. Conversely, there was no significant causal association between intelligence and BD risk (p > 0.05).

Conclusions

These findings support observational studies showing that patients with SCZ display impairment in premorbid intelligence and intelligence decline. Moreover, a shared factor between SCZ and BD might contribute to impairment in premorbid intelligence and intelligence decline but SCZ-specific factors might be affected by impairment in premorbid intelligence. We suggest that patients with these genetic factors should be categorized as having a cognitive disorder SCZ or BD subtype.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
Figure 0

Table 1. Bidirectional causal associations between disorders and between lower intelligence and risks for SCZ, BD, SCZ + BD, or SCZ versus BD.

Figure 1

Figure 1. A bidirectional effect (bxy) of risk for SCZ (bzx) on risk for BD (bzy) (a) and of risk for BD (bzx) on risk for SCZ (bzy) (b). BD, bipolar disorder; SCZ, schizophrenia. We plotted effect sizes of independent lead SNPs from the GWAS of bzx on the x-axis and SNP GWAS effect sizes for bzy on the y-axis. The dotted line shows a line with a slope of bxy and an intercept of 0. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals for the effect sizes for each disorder.

Figure 2

Figure 2. A bidirectional effect (bxy) of intelligence (bzx) on risk for SCZ or BD, a shared risk between SCZ and BD (SCZ + BD), or SCZ-specific risk (SCZ vs. BD) (bzy) (a). A bidirectional effect (bxy) of risk for SCZ or BD, SCZ + BD, or SCZ versus BD (bzx) on intelligence (bzy) (b). BD, bipolar disorder; SCZ, schizophrenia.

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