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Heritability of Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and Stroop Color-Word Test Performance in Normal Individuals: Implications for the Search for Endophenotypes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2012

Jeanette Taylor*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States of America. taylor@psy.fsu.edu
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr Jeanette Taylor, Florida State University, Department of Psychology, PO Box 3061270, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1270.

Abstract

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Asurge in the search for endophenotypes for psychiatric disorders has occurred in the past several years. An important criterion of an endophenotype is that it is heritable. Two of the most widely used executive cognitive functioning measures are the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the Stroop Color-Word Test. Each has been considered as a possible endophenotype. However, research on the heritability of each of these measures is sparse, and in the case of the WCST, mixed. As part of a pilot twin study examining cognitive functioning and personality in adults, the WCST and the Stroop were administered to 80 monozygotic and 29 dizygotic twin pairs screened for absence of neurological disease and head injury. Results replicated and extended previous findings for moderate heritability of Stroop performance. However, the WCST showed little evidence of genetic influence, suggesting that it might not meet one of the criteria for an endophenotype.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007