Whether the difficulty of sitting down to study is partly inherited — a question with real, and repeatedly overstated, research behind it.
Why this topic Adult ADHD diagnoses, study-with-me streams and focus apps have made attention something people now think of as a trait they have.
2026-04-30 · Londono-Correa D, et al., Nature Communications 2026, PMID:42062297
Cognitive ability is usually studied as one thing. This study split performance on cognitive tests into three parts — reaction time, fluid reasoning (working out something new) and crystallized knowledge (what a person has learned) — and reports a genome-wide analysis of crystallized knowledge in about 439,000 people. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, ADHD and Alzheimer's disease were each genetically correlated with the three parts, and with a non-cognitive factor tied to educational attainment, but the size and even the direction of the correlation depended on which part and which disorder. 10 of the study's positions are already on this site, including rs34316 (MEF2C), filed here under educational attainment, and rs429358 (APOE), which the study reports for fluid reasoning. PMID:42062297.
Solid lines are connections this site curates. Dashed lines mean the two ends share a research paper — worth knowing, and not a claim that one explains the other.
Counted in Europe PMC, where the title or abstract names both this topic and that rsID. The number is papers, not evidence of a cause.
BDNF
Smoking behavior
26 papers →APOE
Lewy body disease
16 papers →CACNA1C
Schizophrenia
8 papers →MTHFR
Folate metabolism (MTHFR C677T)
7 papers →APOE
Alzheimer's disease (late onset)
5 papers →ANK3
Bipolar disorder
4 papers →ADH1B
Alcohol metabolism speed
3 papers →OPRM1
Opioid receptor sensitivity
3 papers →LOC150577
Educational attainment
3 papers →CHRNA3
Smoking behavior
2 papers →NCAN
Bipolar disorder
2 papers →NRGN
Schizophrenia
2 papers →CHRNA3
Post bronchodilator FEV1
2 papers →MTHFR
Folate metabolism (MTHFR A1298C)
2 papers →CACNA1C
Schizophrenia
2 papers →CHRNA5
Smoking behavior
2 papers →SNCA
Parkinson's disease
2 papers →ALDH2
Alcohol flush reaction
2 papers →CYP1A2
Caffeine metabolism
2 papers →LOC100129158
Educational attainment
2 papers →FTO
Menarche (age at onset)
2 papers →BDNF
Body mass index
1 paper →FUT9
Schizophrenia
1 paper →IGF2BP3
Height
1 paper →POU3F2
Educational attainment
1 paper →HK1
Hemoglobin
1 paper →SLC10A2
Late-onset Alzheimer's disease
1 paper →HFE
Iron overload risk (hereditary hemochromatosis)
1 paper →BCHE
Cardiovascular disease risk factors
1 paper →GC
Vitamin D levels
1 paper →KCNV1
Schizophrenia
1 paper →TERT
Serum prostate-specific antigen levels
1 paper →APOC2
Triglycerides
1 paper →AGR3
Urinary albumin excretion
1 paper →APOE
LDL cholesterol
1 paper →MCM6 / LCT
Lactose tolerance
1 paper →G6PC2
Fasting plasma glucose
1 paper →CYP3A5
CYP3A5 expression (*3 allele)
1 paper →JMJD1C
Liver enzyme levels (alkaline phosphatase)
1 paper →CD2AP
Alzheimer's disease (late onset)
1 paper →CHADL
Schizophrenia
1 paper →TRANK1
Bipolar disorder
1 paper →FTO
Obesity-related traits
1 paper →Europe PMC, title and abstract only, searched for “educational attainment”, “cognitive performance”, “academic achievement”, “working memory”, “reading ability” alongside each published rsID. Full text was not counted: it returns every paper with an rsID buried in a supplementary table. Recounted monthly.
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Learning and focus. MyGeneLog™. https://www.mygenelog.com/topics/learning
Learning and focus is this site's topic page for the genetics of study and attention — whether the difficulty of sitting down to work is partly inherited, a question with real, and often overstated, research behind it.
Partly, and the research is real — but it is also repeatedly overstated. Educational attainment and cognitive performance are genuinely heritable in population studies, which is a different claim from a variant predicting one person's study habits.
Adult ADHD diagnoses, study-with-me livestreams and focus apps have made attention something people now think of as a trait they personally have, rather than just a skill.
Europe PMC is searched for educational attainment, cognitive performance, academic achievement, working memory or reading ability appearing in a paper's title or abstract alongside a published rsID, recounted every month.