TY - JOUR AB - Background: Blood-based markers of cognitive functioning might provide an accessible way to track neurodegeneration years prior to clinical manifestation of cognitive impairment and dementia. Results: Using blood-based epigenome-wide analyses of general cognitive function, we show that individual differences in DNA methylation (DNAm) explain 35.0% of the variance in general cognitive function (g). A DNAm predictor explains ~4% of the variance, independently of a polygenic score, in two external cohorts. It also associates with circulating levels of neurology- and inflammation-related proteins, global brain imaging metrics, and regional cortical volumes. Conclusions: As sample sizes increase, the ability to assess cognitive function from DNAm data may be informative in settings where cognitive testing is unreliable or unavailable. AU - McCartney, Daniel L. AU - Hillary, Robert F. AU - Conole, Eleanor L.S. AU - Banos, Daniel Trejo AU - Gadd, Danni A. AU - Walker, Rosie M. AU - Nangle, Cliff AU - Flaig, Robin AU - Campbell, Archie AU - Murray, Alison D. AU - Maniega, Susana Muñoz AU - Valdés-Hernández, María Del C. AU - Harris, Mathew A. AU - Bastin, Mark E. AU - Wardlaw, Joanna M. AU - Harris, Sarah E. AU - Porteous, David J. AU - Tucker-Drob, Elliot M. AU - McIntosh, Andrew M. AU - Evans, Kathryn L. AU - Deary, Ian J. AU - Cox, Simon R. AU - Robinson, Matthew Richard AU - Marioni, Riccardo E. ID - 10702 IS - 1 JF - Genome Biology SN - 1474-7596 TI - Blood-based epigenome-wide analyses of cognitive abilities VL - 23 ER -