Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have published a pivotal study in Nature Genetics (DOI: 10.1038/s41588-024-01917-1) that sheds light on a novel genetic variant associated with intellectual capacities and educational outcomes. This discovery offers new insights into intellectual disability diagnostics and potential therapeutic avenues.
The study reveals the significant impact of tandem repeats—sequences of DNA where a pattern of nucleotides is repeated multiple times in a head-to-tail manner on a chromosome—on intellectual functioning.