Charting the shared genetic architecture of Alzheimer's disease, cognition, and educational attainment, and associations with brain development

Piotr Jaholkowski; Shahram Bahrami; Vera Fominykh; Guy F L Hindley; Markos Tesfaye; Pravesh Parekh; Nadine Parker; Tahir T Filiz; Kaja Nordengen; Espen Hagen; Elise Koch; Nora R Bakken; Evgeniia Frei; Viktoria Birkenæs; Zillur Rahman; Oleksandr Frei; Jan Haavik; Srdjan Djurovic; Anders M Dale; Olav B Smeland; Kevin S O'Connell; Alexey A Shadrin; Ole A Andreassen

doi:10.1016/j.nbd.2024.106750

Charting the shared genetic architecture of Alzheimer's disease, cognition, and educational attainment, and associations with brain development

Neurobiol Dis. 2024 Nov 26:106750. doi: 10.1016/j.nbd.2024.106750. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Piotr Jaholkowski¹, Shahram Bahrami², Vera Fominykh², Guy F L Hindley³, Markos Tesfaye⁴, Pravesh Parekh², Nadine Parker², Tahir T Filiz², Kaja Nordengen⁵, Espen Hagen², Elise Koch², Nora R Bakken², Evgeniia Frei², Viktoria Birkenæs², Zillur Rahman², Oleksandr Frei⁶, Jan Haavik⁷, Srdjan Djurovic⁸, Anders M Dale⁹, Olav B Smeland², Kevin S O'Connell², Alexey A Shadrin¹⁰, Ole A Andreassen¹¹

Affiliations

¹ Center for Precision Psychiatry, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. Electronic address: p.p.jaholkowski@medisin.uio.no.
² Center for Precision Psychiatry, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
³ Center for Precision Psychiatry, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, UK.
⁴ Center for Precision Psychiatry, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
⁵ Department of Neurology, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
⁶ Center for Precision Psychiatry, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Center for Bioinformatics, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁷ Department of Biomedicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
⁸ Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; Department of Medical Genetics, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
⁹ Department of Radiology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA; Multimodal Imaging Laboratory, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA; Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA; Department of Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
¹⁰ Center for Precision Psychiatry, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; KG Jebsen Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
¹¹ Center for Precision Psychiatry, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; KG Jebsen Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. Electronic address: ole.andreassen@medisin.uio.no.

PMID: 39608471
DOI: 10.1016/j.nbd.2024.106750

Abstract

The observation that the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease is reduced in individuals with high premorbid cognitive functioning, higher educational attainment, and occupational status has led to the 'cognitive reserve' hypothesis. This hypothesis suggests that individuals with greater cognitive reserve can tolerate a more significant burden of neuropathological changes before the onset of cognitive decline. The underpinnings of cognitive reserve remain poorly understood, although a shared genetic basis between measures of cognitive reserve and Alzheimer's disease has been suggested. Using the largest samples to date and novel statistical tools, we aimed to investigate shared genetic variants between Alzheimer's disease, and measures of cognitive reserve; cognition and educational attainment to identify molecular and neurobiological foundations. We applied the causal mixture model (MiXeR) to estimate the number of trait-influencing variants shared between Alzheimer's disease, cognition, and educational attainment, and condFDR/conjFDR to identify shared loci. To provide biological insights loci were functionally characterized. Subsequently, we constructed a Structural Equation Model (SEM) to determine if the polygenic foundation of cognition has a direct impact on Alzheimer's disease risk, or if its effect is mediated through established risk factors for the disease, using a case-control sample from the UK Biobank. Univariate MiXeR analysis (after excluding chromosome 19) revealed that Alzheimer's disease was substantially less polygenic (450 trait-influencing variants) compared to cognition (11,100 trait-influencing variants), and educational attainment (12,700 trait-influencing variants). Bivariate MiXeR analysis estimated that Alzheimer's disease shared approximately 70 % of trait-influencing variants with cognition, and approximately 40 % with educational attainment, with mixed effect directions. Using condFDR analysis, we identified 18 loci jointly associated with Alzheimer's disease and cognition and 6 loci jointly associated with Alzheimer's disease and educational attainment. Genes mapped to shared loci were associated with neurodevelopment, expressed in early life, and implicated the dendritic tree and phosphatidylinositol phosphate binding mechanisms. Spatiotemporal gene expression analysis of the identified genes showed that mapped genes were highly expressed during the mid-fetal period, further suggesting early neurodevelopmental stages as critical periods for establishing cognitive reserve which affect the risk of Alzheimer's disease in old age. Furthermore, our SEM analysis showed that genetic variants influencing cognition had a direct effect on the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, providing evidence in support of the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of the disease.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; Brain development; Cognition; Educational attainment; Genetics/genomics; MiXeR; Neurodevelopment.