Genetic influences on free and cued recall in long-term memory tasks.

Full Abstract

Long-term memory (LTM) problems are associated with many psychiatric and neurological illnesses and are commonly measured using free and cued recall tasks. Although LTM has been linked with biologic mechanisms, the etiology of distinct LTM tasks is unknown. We studied LTM in 95 healthy female twin pairs identified through birth records in the state of Missouri. Performance on tasks of free recall of unrelated words, free and cued recall of categorized words, and the vocabulary section of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R) were examined using structural equation modeling. Additive genetic and unique environmental factors influenced LTM and intelligence. Free recall of unrelated and categorized words, and cued recall of categorized words, were moderately heritable (55%, 38%, and 37%). WAIS-R vocabulary score was highly heritable (77%). Controlling for verbal intelligence in multivariate analyses of recall, two components of genetic influence on LTM were found; one for all three recall scores and one for free and cued categorized word recall. Recall of unrelated and categorized words is influenced by different genetic and environmental factors indicating heterogeneity in LTM. Verbal intelligence is etiologically different from LTM indicating that these two abilities utilize different brain functions.

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Author information

Author/s: Volk, Heather E (HE); McDermott, Kathleen B (KB); Roediger, Henry L (HL); Todd, Richard D (RD);

Affiliation: Doctoral Program in Public Health Studies, Saint Louis University School of Public Health, Saint Louis, Missouri, USA.

Grants: 1F31MH074272 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Twin Study

Journal: Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies (Twin Res Hum Genet), published in Australia. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Oct; vol 9 (issue 5) : pp 623-31

Dates: Created 2006/10/11; Completed 2007/01/18; Revised 2007/12/03;

PMID: 17032541, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Cues
Female
Genetics, Behavioral
Humans

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