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What happened with the latest set of GWAS alleles?
Whats the direction? I assume Piffer has checked already? Or did they not work out?
Whats the direction? I assume Piffer has checked already? Or did they not work out?


Checks are in progress with more sophisticated methods. I will keep you updated.
Admin
They worked out, but we revised the method to better test the population structure.
Ok.

Are these from the top 6 you mentioned in a previous topic all of positive effect? I assume so but I want to make sure.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VuRF5_YiTj50XVJeI5WeVrCGadY-EjeefR1FtWrb96o/edit?pli=1
Admin
rs17522122 has a negative loading (see Table 3). The strange thing is that the GWAS seems to find the right SNPs, but sometimes gets the direction wrong. I don't understand it. Still, this leaves 5 out of 6 with positive loadings, which is ok, but not totally convincing.

The preliminary paper is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Sb68X4TImRK5_QhUkUftokBpKrXyO8H5cT2Ou8H75xk/edit

Piffer figured out how to use the package that can calculate Fst's based on entire chromosomes (we use Chr21 because it is the shortest). Then he calculated all the Fst differences and the SNP GI factor differences. If population structure is responsible for the correlations, then in multiple regression, the Fst's should have a strong beta, while the SNP GI factor should not. However, we found the opposite:

> cor(newdata)
IQdistances fst_21 gfdistances
IQdistances 1.0000000 0.5885368 0.7764679
fst_21 0.5885368 1.0000000 0.7855911
gfdistances 0.7764679 0.7855911 1.0000000
> fit <- lm(IQdistances ~ fst_21 + gfdistances, data=newdata)
> lm.beta(fit)
fst_21 gfdistances
-0.05602615 0.82048156

The above is with the 4 replicated SNPs.

With 6 the betas are:
Fst gdist
0.005 0.673

So a bit worse, as expected if rs17522122 is a false positive.

With the ADHD SNPs:

Fst adhddist
0.168 0.484

Lots of more population structure here. The ADHD SNPs are not quite as low p value as the others, so there are probably a number of false positives in the hits.

---

All in all, I'm not convinced yet that this genomic evidence irrefutable, but the initial results mostly point towards the genetic model in my opinion.
Ok, thanks.

What about the other 3, shouldn't there be 9?
Admin
Most of the 'new' SNPs were in a close region with those already found or reported in the same study. Thus, they are not independent signals, their correlations are |.99 to 1.00|. We used only those not in strong linkage disequilibrium.
Because complex traits have many alleles of very small influence, I have been trying to test obesity genetics in HapMap. Genetic influence on worldwide obesity shouldn't be as strong as IQ, but I would still expect significant East Asian advantage. Adding the products of betas and allele frequencies gave me this bar graph:

https://twitter.com/UnsilencedSci/status/569082742949879808

That's using 94 alleles. I'm impressed with what you guys have done for IQ and height, but this graph makes me worry that a small number of alleles is insufficient.
Admin
What's the p values of those obesity SNPs? They may be mostly noise (like the ADHD ones are I think).

Obesity is special. Within western countries, the correlation between obesity and GI is negative. But between countries, the correlation is positive. See: http://openpsych.net/ODP/2014/09/the-international-general-socioeconomic-factor-factor-analyzing-international-rankings/ For this reason I would not try obesity SNPs using the Piffer methods between countries. One might argue still within countries (e.g. USA). If your results are real and the SNPs are true hits, then we have a problem.
I took them from Locke et al:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25673413

Novel allele P values ranged from 4.98 x 10^-8 to 5.48 x 10^-13.

Obesity is different in any number of ways. Perhaps a variety of selective forces act upon it. Perhaps the obesity epidemic is so extreme that "common sense" poorly reflects genetic reality. I don't know.

I didn't really use the Piffer method, I was trying to build on my previous work, which was inspired by Belsky et al.

http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1171937
Admin
Well, try the Piffer method on the top 13 SNPs using data from 1000 genomes. The mean loading should be high and loadings should be all positive if there is/was strong selection and they are true hits.
Another GWAS hit (linked to processing speed) has been published on Molecular Psychiatry. I checked the frequencies of the beneficial allele and its correlation both to the 4 and 6 SNPs g factors is 0.96. A new factor analysis using the entire set of 7 SNPs (4+2 from the previous GWAS + 1 from the present), shows that 6/7 alleles load positively on the factor.
The article is attached.
Admin
There is a way for a SNP to load negatively while still being a true hit and the selection model being correct. This is if it only has a positive effect together with some other gene only found in lower scoring populations (epistasis), or alternatively has a negative effect due to some other gene in the higher scoring populations.

Or if a new mutation which has a positive effect arose in a low scoring population, this would happen too. The latter is detectable in that the frequencies in the other populations should be 0 if there has not been gene flow for this SNP recently.

Can you also run the usual analyses on the new hit? I'm thinking of these:
- New SNP factor x national IQ.
- New SNP factor x national IQ where population structure is removed from the SNP factor (semi-partial correlation) or used in multiple regression together.
- The mean factor loading of the new SNP factor compared with the mean factor loading of random SNP factors.
There is a way for a SNP to load negatively while still being a true hit and the selection model being correct. This is if it only has a positive effect together with some other gene only found in lower scoring populations (epistasis), or alternatively has a negative effect due to some other gene in the higher scoring populations.


Edited.

There are a number of ways by which this could happen. For example, there are plietrophic effect between IQ and other traits e.g., height. If the global pattern of e.g., height selection was different from IQ selection, you would have some IQ genes loading on a different factor (i.e., height selection would pull some IQ genes in a different direction).
Mexicans and other South Americans are doing rather well. Also I suggest you check the South Asian samples from USA and UK for their educational and IQ performance. They show very large gains in the adoption studies and do well in the UK.

Either way this still doesn't increase my trust in these GWAS studies. Also why don't you use the 3 from the second large GWAS study
? The one where they checked for cognitive performance in the same sample as the 1st one on education.
Mexicans and other South Americans are doing rather well. Also I suggest you check the South Asian samples from USA and UK for their educational and IQ performance. They show very large gains in the adoption studies and do well in the UK.

Either way this still doesn't increase my trust in these GWAS studies. Also why don't you use the 3 from the second large GWAS study
? The one where they checked for cognitive performance in the same sample as the 1st one on education.


I have....and they were 2, not 3, because one SNP overlapped with a previous from Rietveld. Thus we have a total of 7 SNPs (3 from Rietveld, 1 from Benyamin, 2 from Davies 2015 and the most recent one). You can see the new factor scores here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aaTaL78T4oTlzmXrTS3WpCAy086zRpO22ROF-OXnCWE/edit?usp=sharing
Huh. I am sure there is one study you are missing. I remember another gwas right after the first.

I recall 4 gwass including latest.
Huh. I am sure there is one study you are missing. I remember another gwas right after the first.

I recall 4 gwass including latest.


You must be thinking about this: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/38/13790.abstract

I will include it too, then, although I am not sure about the validity of the proxy-phenotype method.
Ah yes. Thats it.
Huh. I am sure there is one study you are missing. I remember another gwas right after the first.

I recall 4 gwass including latest.


You must be thinking about this: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/38/13790.abstract

I will include it too, then, although I am not sure about the validity of the proxy-phenotype method.




How many of the 7 alleles have other ones in LD?

At some point, maybe you should try weighting the factor analysis as some "hits" will be more reliable than others.

(Could you make a table for us? -- listing x independent alleles along with the ones in LD.)